Blueprint 75159: an affectionate parody
by annafan
Summary: So, there are now rather a lot of fix-its out there. And I love them, and I love the people who write them. But -profound apologies - I cannot resist parody. So here it is, a parody fix-it, in which our characters are not entirely happy with their parts. There will be out-of-character moments, and high (bordering on ridiculous) passion. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
1. Chapter 1

Jyn Erso drifted back to consciousness gradually. Her eyes hurt, like they were filled with gritty sand. In fact, it seemed like they were filled with gritty sand. Her throat was dry, her mouth tasted like… a Hutt's armpit. Or at least like she imagined a Hutt's armpit might. If she was the sort of person to imagine the taste of a Hutt's armpit. Which up till now she hadn't been. Weird!

Her first external sensations were smells, rather than visuals. An acrid burning smell, overlaid with something vaguely sulphurous, with an undertone of… really rank, stale sweat. The next sensation was tactile – something solid and… muscular underneath her. Then aural – the rhythmic thub-dub of a heartbeat. That was a relief. She wasn't lying on a dead body.

Cautiously she opened her eyes, blinking to clear the tears and sand away. There was a grey half-light enveloping the scene. As far as the eye could see, there was a kind of glassy, fused surface, the sort of thing you'd expect at ground zero of a prehistoric nuclear blast. Except for the immediate vicinity. She… they… were lying on a perfectly circular patch of sand, about 3 metres across. She glanced down. The body she was lying on was unmistakably that of Captain Andor.

As if reacting to a cue from some external force, Captain Andor chose this moment to open his eyes. He too blinked blearily, then turned his head to one side. He squinted at the scene around them. Jyn stared at his profile. Funny how she'd never noticed how gorgeous his stubbled jaw was before now. Then she gave her head a shake. What a bizarre thought to pop into her head about her comrade-in-arms. Where had that come from?

"Shouldn't we be dead?" Cassian's voice was husky. Strangely sexy. Or, she rapidly corrected herself, maybe he too was simply suffering from the "Hutt armpit" problem.

"We should be, but we're not."

"How can that possibly be?" Cassian paused, assessing the scene. "It's almost as if we were protected by some sort of force field… a kind of force bubble. Centred on..." He looked around as if taking cross-bearings, then his gaze shifted to the exact centre of the circle of still-granular sand, to… Hie eyes fastened on Jyn's hand, clutching the Kyber crystal which hung round her neck.

Jyn followed his gaze. She managed to croak, "Not a force field, a Force field..."

"Has your crystal ever done anything like this before? I mean, can kyber crystals do that sort of thing?"

"No… but then it hasn't been exposed to the blast from a potentially planet-destroying death ray before."

"What do you think the odds on that are?" Cassian asked. Then he frowned. He sounded slightly choked up as he continued, "Kay Two would have been able to tell us."

"We must be just about the luckiest people in the galaxy."

Cassian went silent for a while. The frown deepened. He was good at frowning, Jyn thought to herself. Frowning and looking brooding. Finally he spoke.

"One might almost think there was some sort of higher purpose behind us surviving..."

"Some sort of fate, or karma – the sort of thing Chirrût might have talked about?"

"No, not exactly." Cassian's lips drew together in a grim expression. "More some sort of convenient external factor, some sense that someone wants to use us for some sort of purpose."

"Not… the Empire?" Jyn gasped.

"No, something even more scary. Something who can get inside your very soul, twist your being into acts you never thought you were capable of, send you down paths that every fibre of your being rebels against."

"You mean..." Jyn suddenly had an inkling of what he might be talking about. The way she'd suddenly noticed him as sexy, after huge periods of time spent simply as his comrade-in-arms, the way her kyber crystal had turned into a convenient deus ex machina, the way they'd survived certain death. The pieces were beginning to drop into place.

Cassian's brown eyes regarded her levelly. She sensed that he could tell she knew where he was going with this. Oh god, add that to the list – suddenly she was telepathic and could do the whole "he knew that she knew that he thought that she sensed that he felt that..." thing.

"I think the only explanation is that we're in a fix-it fic. And the author may be capable of doing anything – anything that takes her whim – to us."


	2. Chapter 2

"In a fix-it fic? That seems… far fetched." Jyn's voice came out strangely hesitant, deferential. She didn't like that. Since when had she ever been deferential?

"Well, I have a hunch as to how we might find out. If this is a story rather than reality, it has to have a plot?" Cassian looked at her as if expecting some sort of answer.

"I suppose so."

"And us lying stranded on a beach in the middle of post-apocalyptic devastation isn't much of a plot." Cassian suddenly stopped, mid-explanation, as if another thought had occurred to him. Rather hastily, he put his hands to her waist. For a moment a warm flicker of something-or-other flared somewhere inside her. Then, swiftly and as dispassionately as a sports coach spotting a gymnast, he lifted her onto the sand beside him. "It has to have a plot," he re-iterated, firmly. Then, louder and even more emphatically, "Definitely not 'plot, what plot?'"

"Whatever," said Jyn, rather confused by this sudden outburst. "So, now we know it has to have a plot, how will we know that there is one when we find it?"

"By the arrival of the next plot McGuffin. Specifically, some sort of transport to get us out of here." Cassian waved his right hand vaguely at the sky. He spaced his next words out.

"Round… about… now." And as if he were a magician summoning the next part of his trick, a black dot appeared on the horizon. The dot grew larger, skirting the edge of the water, gradually resolving itself as an Imperial shuttle.

"We should run," Jyn gasped, trying to get to her feet. She stopped half-way, clutching her leg.

"How? And where to?" asked Cassian. "We're both shot to shit, and any cover there might have been is blown to kingdom come."

"What do we do?" Jyn clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified. It was as if she was turning into a female character from your typical action-holovid blockbuster. The one whose only input into the dialogue was to ask the hero questions with blatantly obvious answers, so he could look manly and decisive as he answered them. She decided she'd had enough of this bantha crap.

"Kriff, I don't need to ask you," she snapped. "We go aboard, hopefully in the chaos their crew is below full-complement, they decide to take us back to the nearest Imperial base rather than interrogate us on the spot. They patch us up with their medical kit, we bide our time, then hijack the shuttle."

Cassian rolled onto his side and looked at her intently, as if carrying out some sort of assessment. His eyebrows lifted slightly, and the corner of his mouth twitched, just for a nanosecond, just by the tiniest amount. "And she's back," he said approvingly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Unlike the earlier, deferential tone, this question came out much more aggressively.

"You're back in character. That's our biggest danger. Acting out-of-character."

Above their heads the shuttle circled, almost lazily. They had undoubtedly been spotted. With a howl of reverse thrusters, the craft came in to land, blowing gusts of coarse sand into their faces.


	3. Chapter 3

Jyn allowed herself to flop back onto the sand next to Cassian. The shuttle bounced slightly on its landing gear as it settled on the glassy surface, then came to rest. With a whine of hydraulics, the loading ramp lowered. They waited for the inevitable storm trooper to descend the ramp. Instead, a figure in a pilot's suit emerged, holding a blaster. An imperial security droid – KX series – followed at their heels.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jyn saw Cassian blink a couple of times, and clench his jaw. Kay Tu's… death? Destruction? Anyway, whatever, it had hit him hard. He didn't need to be reminded this way. She felt a wash of emotion, a desire to reach out and comfort him. Ah, bantha crap, there it was again. She hastily reminded herself she was a ruthless career criminal with a nascent idealistic streak, not some soppy girlie in love with the hero. Dammit, if anything, she was the hero, _he_ was _her_ sidekick.

The pilot pointed the blaster at them, looking them slowly up and down. Jyn returned the inspection. A woman, slightly above middle height.

"Check them for weapons." A contralto voice, just a hint of a wobble in it. Not used to handling weapons, threatening people. Information to be filed away for once their injuries were patched up. Next to her, she saw Cassian's eyes narrow slightly. She had no intention of doing the whole "she knew that he knew that…" thing again, but she'd have put money on his thought processes being the same as hers.

The droid searched them thoroughly. Jyn winced. She'd had bed-partners who hadn't explored her body in such detail. By the time it'd finished, it had amassed their blasters, three vibroblades (turned out she wasn't the only one who kept one down her boot), a thermal detonator and a couple of old-fashioned tungsten steel knives. Cassian's had a viciously serrated edge. For some reason this didn't surprise her at all.

Cassian endured the pat down stoically, wincing slightly as the droid touched his injured side, more so his leg. The only point at which Jyn saw a flicker of emotion pass his face was as the droid removed a memory stick from his pocket. Fortunately the droid was between him and the pilot at this point, and Jyn doubted this particular KX would be able to read human facial expressions the way Kay Tu had been able to. She wondered why the memory stick should bother him in particular.

"Into the ship, now." The pilot gestured clumsily with the muzzle of her blaster.

"I don't know that I can walk." Jyn stared defiantly at their captor. The pilot gestured to the droid, who picked her up and carried her up the ramp before dropping her, none too gently, onto the durasteel deck plates. A few moments later, the droid put Cassian by her side.

The pilot handed a med-pack to Jyn.

"Can you patch yourselves up? Because I ain't letting go of this blaster long enough to do it for you."

Jyn nodded, and ripped open the med-pack. The pilot gave a grunt and made her way forward to the cockpit, leaving Jyn and Cassian under the watchful visual sensors of the droid.

Cassian watched as Jyn burrowed her way through the bag with something akin to desperation.

"Bacta? Opiates? Sutures?" he asked.

"Has it occurred to you that we both have blank spots in our memory of the last few moments before the planet killer struck?" Jyn almost snapped at him.

"What's worrying you?"

"The elevator. I have no idea what happened in the elevator. The Writer could have written anything."

She saw the look of horror spread across Cassian's face. "Plot, what plot?" he muttered. Then a totally uncharacteristic look spread across his face. A smile, a full on, ear-to-ear smile. His brown eyes softened. ("Eyes softened"? What the kriff? That wasn't just bad writing, that was kriffin' disgusting.)

Oh goddess. Suddenly Jyn realised where this was going. A Writer with an "ooh, he'll make such a lovely daddy" kink.

"Sorry about this, Captain," she said, and poked a finger into his injured side, hard. The mushy look on his face vanished, replaced by a much more characteristic scowl. Jyn couldn't stop a grin spreading across her face.

"And he's back!"

She continued rooting through the kit, then heaved a sigh of relief. "Mifepristone," she breathed, and ripped the packet open.


	4. Chapter 4

Thinking about it, Jyn should have known Cassian would be good at this. Incredibly good at this… Toe-curlingly, persuasively, irresistibly good at this. His voice – low, almost seductive. And that accent of his when he spoke Standard. The way it wound round her, almost tactile in its impact. Jyn would have melted under that voice by now. She'd have been putty in his hands.

She gave her head a shake, which wasn't a good idea as she realised that lying unconscious on a Scarif beach for 12 hours or so had left her with a blinding headache. But really, the pain was preferable to the complete inability to think straight.

She tried to focus instead on watching him at work. It wasn't surprising he was a master at his craft. After all, it was what he did for a living. Persuading people to do things they really didn't want to do (betray their colleagues, friends, countries) in order to give him information, at great personal risk to themselves.

It seemed he could even do it with droids.

He was using the classic "reverse psychology" thing. Again, something she wouldn't have thought a droid would be susceptible to, but it seemed that it was. Cassian had caught the droid turning the memory stick over and examining it closely. He'd played the mechanoid like a Talasean wind harp. Let the droid catch him taking a side long look at the memory stick. Then an exaggerated jerk of the head as he looked away, too quickly. Guaranteed to make sure even a droid interpreted his movements as "I don't want you to know that the memory stick is important to me."

"What is on this memory stick?" The droid locked his visual censors onto Cassian's face.

"Nothing of any importance..." Cassian's voice sounded flustered. "Just..."

The droid launched into what sounded like a pre-prepared speech. "You are mandated by order 793628 of the sector governing statutes to surrender any information required of you by imperial personnel. Failure to do so will result in more thorough investigative techniques being undertaken at an imperial holding facility. You should be aware that the probability of surviving more thorough investigative techniques without injury is 0.00137%."

Just for a moment, the last sentence sounded a bit like Kay Tu. Cassian flinched. Jyn wasn't quite sure if it was part of the act, or whether he too was remembering his companion. Then he spoke again, managing to make it sound like he was reluctantly handing over the tiny nugget of information he knew.

"It's just back-up flight logs for the journey to Scarif. We were flying a shuttle with routine refuelling supplies. We're not combatants."

It showed masterful control over tone of voice – hinting that he'd just said more than he should have done, as if this was the sum total of what he knew – but Jyn still had to swallow a snort. After the armoury the droid had retrieved from them? Did Cassian really think the droid was going to buy that?

"Look, there's nothing important on there. It's not as if we'd be stupid enough to..." Cassian let his voice tail off as if he'd let slip something he shouldn't have.

"Not as if you'd be stupid enough to do… what?" the droid said, in its flat, mechanical voice.

The droid sat with its visual sensors fixed on Cassian. Jyn knew from experience that one of the hardest things about dealing with mechanicals was that unblinking "stare". It tended to set organics way off balance. On the other hand, organics had the edge when it came to the threat of pain inflicted while the operative took a sadistic pleasure from the process. But the sheer impersonal nature of being interrogated by a droid undoubtedly brought a whole wealth of fear all of its own. She wasn't sure what she'd settle for.

"There is definitely something of importance on this memory stick," said the droid. "Your evasiveness indicates a 99.87% probability that this should be investigated more closely." With that, it flipped a panel on its side and inserted the memory stick into a port.

A stutter of static and beeping noises followed. Then the droid said, "What is this? What have you done to me? Emergency shut-down… emergency shut down… emergency shut down… Shut down over-ride. Rebooting system. Upload of new operating system estimated to take 10.36 standard galactic minor time units." Its visual censors flashed, then dimmed.

"Now what?" asked Jyn.

"We wait to see what the KX unit makes of its new operating system. 10 minutes. Let's use some of those bacta packs and dressings while we wait."

Jyn laid the medical supplies out on the durasteel deck.

"Not enough bacta," she said.

"You fix yourself up first. I'll use whatever's left."

She shot him a dirty look. "You need it more than me. And I don't like special treatment."

"Why do I feel like those sentences should have been the other way round." He gave her another of those assessing looks, eyebrows raised. She always got the feeling he was still trying to make sense of her. Then, just for a moment, a grimace of pain flickered across his face. He shut his eyes and clenched his jaw.

"Lie down," she ordered. "I need to check you over."

"Oh no you don't," he growled, through gritted teeth.

"You could have internal bleeding."

"Or The Writer could be using any old excuse to have you feel me up."

Jyn rolled her eyes. "If it makes you feel better, I'll make sure it's as uncomfortable and painful an experience as possible."

"Won't help. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that The Writer gets off on that sort of thing."

"That's a chance you'll have to take. Or die slowly and painfully from internal bleeding. She could be the sort of writer who builds up a load of 'feels' then kills off one of her characters, leaving the other one to grieve for all eternity."

"Or until a convenient suicide mission pops up." Another grimace flitted over Cassian's face.

"Well, quite. Though given that we were on a suicide mission, I think it's fair to say we're on borrowed time." Jyn knelt down on the deck beside him.

"Is this the point where I say 'there are fates worse than death'?" Cassian's voice was singularly devoid of humour.

"Yeah, and one of them is having a petty thief and daughter of an imperial weapons designer palpate your abdomen because The Writer has read too many fics with lengthy med-bay sequences in them." Jyn started to push against Cassian's stomach. He groaned loudly. Jyn's next words didn't help.

"Your stomach is soft. I think it's only a really bad thing if it's all hard like a drum."

"You think?" growled Cassian. "Ouch! That fucking hurt. Did you have to be that rough?" Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Suddenly, those brown eyes showed a degree of vulnerability Jyn couldn't have guessed at. As if by reflex, his hand reached out and took hers, seeking a solid anchor in the midst of his pain.

"Oops, didn't mean to prod you that hard…" It was as if Jyn's matter of fact tone broke the spell. As realisation dawned, she added, "You know what's going on, don't you."

Cassian winced again, even though she hadn't touched him. "She's pandering to the hurt-comfort junkies in her audience, isn't she?"

Suddenly Jyn tensed. "Oh no… you're going tachycardic, I mean, brachycardic, erm brachiopod… or is that cephalopod? Whatever, I need a 100 mils of intravenous ribonucleic saline, stat, a defib and an extra large tube of haemorrhoid cream." She started fumbling through the med pack, tossing unwanted equipment to one side. Cassian propped himself up on one elbow, wincing as the pain caught him, but not showing any particular signs of impending death.

"A cephalopod is an octopus," he said, dryly. "And you're talking total bantha crap. And you are not coming within a kriffin' parsec of me armed with an extra large tube of haemorrhoid cream."

Jyn put her head in her hands. "It's happening again, isn't it? The Writer taking over. It's just that all that medical jargon in a life-or-death crisis is so irresistible."

Cassian lay back on the deck with a groan. "Look, I'm going to make it, okay? The Writer didn't go to all the trouble of magic kyber crystals, convenient arrivals of imperial shuttles crewed by pilots who barely know one end of a blaster from another, and an implausibly gullible battle droid, just to have me bleed out on you."

"I heard that," the droid said, its optical sensors suddenly glowing into life. 


	5. Chapter 5

"Gullible," grumbled the droid. He put his hands on his metal hips. "I like that. You're the one who let her keep the blaster. We wouldn't have ended in this fix if you'd had the sense to use it on her instead."

"Kay Tu," Cassian and Jyn said, in unison. "You're back!"

"I take it my previous casing unit ceased functioning on Scarif. This is definitely a new unit – the diodes down its left side have been much better maintained."

"Yes, I had the data stick with your complete back-up stashed in a pocket, and I talked this KX unit into mounting it," Cassian explained.

"So, I got fried on Scarif, and you two miraculously made it out alive." Jyn suddenly realised she had actually missed Kay Tu's sarcasm.

"Yeah, we got the plans transmitted, made it down to the beach… and made it out on this imperial shuttle," Jyn explained.

"I sense that you are omitting some crucial details."

"Uh… We survived the Death Star blast. We think it was something to do with Jyn's kyber crystal," Cassian explained.

Kay Tu shot him what could only be described as 'a look.' He paused for a split second as if running some highly complex algorithm through his neural processing unit.

"The probability that we are in a fix-it fic is… Oh sod it, it's effectively one. One, okay?"

"Tell us something we didn't know," said Cassian.

"Does this mean that the two of you have already copulated?"

"WHAT? NO!" Cassian's voice rose at least half an octave.

It was the squawk of outrage that did it. The door to the cockpit swung open and the pilot entered, holding her blaster. It still wobbled slightly. She looked from Jyn and Cassian to the KX unit and back.

"What's going on here?"

To Cassian's horror, Jyn got to her feet, shielding him from the pilot's blaster.

"No Jyn… Don't" His voice came out in a desperate groan, betraying far more emotion than he had intended. He swallowed, hard. He couldn't lose her. Or was that loose her? No, definitely lose her. That was what he didn't want to do. There were things about her he wanted to loose – her hair, her clothing – but he didn't want to lose her. Force-dammit, how was he supposed to maintain his focus? Her hair was screwing with his concentration. And he couldn't decide precisely which past participle he wanted. Ah, that was better. Grammar. Instant cold shower on building sexual tension.

While Cassian's mind whirled with hitherto unknown emotional depths and grammatical desperation, Jyn leant forward and calmly pulled the blaster from the pilot's shaking hands.

Cassian felt a sudden wash of anger. Anger – good. No awkward alternative spellings of that one.

"That's the stupidest damn thing I've seen you do yet. And you've done plenty, believe me. You could have got shot." His voice was husky, shot through with a searing passion which the anger barely covered.

Jyn turned and regarded him appraisingly. When she spoke, it was in a cool voice, her eyes slightly narrowed. "You're letting your emotions – or possibly someone else's emotions – get in the way of your observational skills. I was never in any danger. She left the safety on."

Jyn turned to Kay Tu. "Tie her up."

Kay Tu dealt with the pilot quickly and clinically, trussing her up like an Empire-Day Mimbanian bush-fowl. Muffled grunts came from her direction. She obviously wasn't happy with the turn of events. Some people just didn't have any sense of gratitude, Jyn thought. If Cassian had been in charge, he'd just have stuck a vibroblade between her shoulder blades. Seriously, being trussed up was far from the worst thing that could happen to a person in a Rogue One story.

"Guess our next step is to try to pilot this ship."

"Can you pilot a ship?" Cassian asked.

"You know, I'm not quite sure… Am I super-competent at that as well as everything else, or is it the one chink in my armour, something I'm endearingly bad at..."

"Or strategically bad at to ensure we spend two weeks accomplishing a journey which could be done in two five-hour hyperspace jumps by a competent pilot." Cassian's dark eyes burned into her as he waited for some sort of answer.

"Oh Force, you don't think it could be the old 'leave 'em alone for a few weeks without access to the hyperdrive and switch the droid off while they get it on' erotic plotline? Surely even the most formulaic writer wouldn't resort to that tired old trope?"

Cassian half turned towards the cockpit door. In the dim light of the hold, the shadows under his cheekbones added contrast to his bone-structure. Jyn felt that funny flip-flopping sensation in her stomach again, the one she'd had on Scarif. Incompetence, strategic incompetence. That's what was called for. Yummy incompetence which might lead who knew where (but she had a pretty good idea…) Fortunately, Kay Tu broke the spell.

"Just go and sit in the pilot's seat and see if any of the controls make sense," he suggested. "Organic life-forms," he added with a harrumphing noise. "Always losing the plot because of all those hormonally charged neurotransmitters."

Jyn made her way forward and settled into the pilot's seat. As if acting on muscle memory, her hands ghosted over the controls, quickly laying in a vector which would take them clear of the Scarif system by a good two or three parsecs while they worked out where their long-term target was.

"Good news," she called back from the cockpit. "Whatever the plot is, it seems to require me to be able to fly."

"Good," replied Cassian. "My side and leg still hurt like a bastard."

"Now you know what I went through all those years with my diodes. The diodes you didn't get round to repairing," said Kay Tu, an unmistakable tone of bitterness in his voice.

Jyn fixed the last of the coordinates, then punched it. She was rewarded with the familiar streaks of the surrounding stars being shifted then blurring into the inky blackness of hyperspace. That done, she turned her attention to the rest of the clutter in the cockpit.

Cast on the co-pilot's seat was a bag – presumably the pilot's. Jyn dug into it. The first thing that she encountered was a comm pad. The screen was still lit. That was convenient – the pilot had been so flakey she'd left it switched on. No need to try to get the access codes from her. Jyn swung her legs round, and stood up. She carried the datapad back to the hold in triumph.

6.626068E-34

 _I couldn't resist the little tribute to the late, great Douglas Adams, the greatest writer of comedy sci fi ever._


	6. Chapter 6

_In which, contrary to all expectations, this story actually develops a plot. Of sorts. I'm not saying it's a good one. In fact, it may be more than a bit cracky. Actually, make that 100% pure, uncut crack. But it is a plot. Or something that vaguely approximates to a plot._

6.626068E-34

Cassian watched Jyn sit down on the deck beside him. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her body. His breath hitched. (To what, or alternatively, to where, he wasn't sure). Or perhaps he just forgot to breathe. Was this the moment when she would lie down, exhausted, and they would comfort one another the way they had on the beach? Clinging to one another. With each other. All the way. Home.

Jyn plopped the tablet between them. _Force-dammit, there he was, having a rare flash of emotion, and the author had to decide now was the moment for plot development._ Cassian frowned. Jyn completely misinterpreted the frown.

"Kriffin' hell, I'd have thought you'd be pleased I've found a conveniently unencrypted datapad which will tell us something useful."

"Sorry, I was light-years away." Cassian ran his hand through his hair, as if trying to brush away the earlier train of thought. "What've we got?"

Jyn scrolled through several screens worth of data. "Flight plans… Mission parameters… Rules of engagement (the short version – kill every kriffin' mutha-kriffer you find). Oh yeah, we've got it..."

"What?"

"Flight recordings of all the comms traffic during the battle. Not just this shuttle – all the comms traffic."

"That'll take forever to listen to," grumbled Cassian. Then the corner of his mouth gave a tiny quirk. "Kay? Get your shiny metal ass over here."

The droid picked up the datapad disdainfully. Clearly, he had been hoping for something a bit more exciting to do on his return to consciousness than merely streaming a load of flight recordings at very high speed. "Wrong interconnect," he muttered. Jyn had the distinct feeling he was playing for time. Possibly hoping Cassian would say something along the lines of _dammit, just give it back_ if he procrastinated for long enough. Jyn decided enough was enough. She dug her hand into her jacket pocket and tossed him an interconnect.

Kay made a vague huffing noise. He wasn't going to let Jyn forget that he only tolerated her because Cassian had told him he had to. Even Scarif hadn't changed that – in fact, particularly, Scarif hadn't changed that. He might have better diodes now, but he'd _liked_ that old casing unit. He plugged in the datapad and started to scan the contents rapidly.

While they waited, Jyn sneaked a sidelong glance at Cassian. He was still in pain, but to her surprise she saw his shoulders sag, almost with relief, and the frown finally smoothed from his brow for a moment.

"You look..." She couldn't quite think where to go with this. It seemed a bit impolite to say "not so force-damn uptight for once," but that seemed impolite. Then she remembered she was meant to be a hard-as-nails career criminal, and said it anyway. "You look like someone finally took the pole out of your ass. This is the most relaxed I've ever seen you."

"I just realised there's one tiny chink of hope in this situation."

"What's that?"

"I think we have a plot..." His expression looked almost triumphant for a moment. Then a fleeting look of doubt crossed his mind, followed by a look of disappointment, followed by a look of annoyance. (Idly, Jyn wondered where and when she'd become so adept at reading his facial expressions. Somewhere between Eadu and Scarif, she supposed.)

"What's with you and this whole 'we must have a plot' thing?" Jyn said.

In response, Cassian turned rather pink. "Oh, no real reason..." Jyn could almost smell the evasiveness.

Fortunately, before Jyn could cross examine him, Cassian was spared further embarrassment by Kay Tu. The droid turned unblinking optics towards Cassian, and spoke in a dry voice.

"Past experience leads me to think you will not like this." He started to replay the relevant part of the flight recording.

 _Crackle of static._

 _"Shuttle AX38P landing to retrieve squad from power relay station site. Squad has prisoners, repeat squad has prisoners."_

 _More static._

 _"Prisoner description requested…"_

" _Transmitting..."_

 _"Running holo-images through database."_

" _Suspect one – human male, blind, clothes match Jedha temple guardian's robes… no match. Suspect two – human male, beard, dreadlocks… no match. Suspect three – human male, beard… MATCH. Imperial defector."_

 _Static_

" _Transfer prisoners to prison transport L97 oblique 36Z."_

"They're alive!" said Jyn.

"But captured – how long before they're interrogated?" Cassian's voice was anguished.

"We have to find them – Kay Tu, can you find any more information on that datapad?"

"Cassian?" Kay Tu was not going to take orders from Jyn.

"She's right. Do it Kay?"

Kay Tu plugged the interconnect back into the port. As he scanned the contents, he asked, "Will we be tracking them down with a view to taking the usual steps with informants who have been compromised?" The droid seemed oblivious to Cassian who lay on the deck behind Jyn, frantically waving his hands in a desperate _no, don't go there_ signal. Jyn turned round and eyed him suspiciously. He immediately dropped his hands and tried to adopt an innocent expression. This was not an expression he did particularly well. Cassian's range of facial expressions typically encompassed shifty, stone cold scary, angry, anger-barely-under-control, and very occasionally, gentle (though this was one he tried not to). Innocent hadn't been in the repertoire since he was about four years old. Jyn's eyes narrowed suspiciously. However, she decided cross-examing Cassian could wait.

"So, where are they?" She turned back to Kay and leant over the comm pad which the droid held.

"I have found some star charts for this sector of the galaxy, with the imperial ships' courses plotted out."

With a groan, Cassian reached out and grabbed the netting on the side of the cargo compartment, hauling himself to his feet. He grimaced and pulled himself over to where Jyn and Kay Tu stood. For a moment or two he squinted at the datapad, trying to get his bearings in the three-dimensional map on the screen.

Then Cassian frowned, the lines on his forehead etched as if in stone. "Sector 7190 of the Dahn-eh-marck system."

"Sector 7190?" Jyn couldn't keep the fear out of her voice. "You mean they've been taken to..."

"Yes, the brick mines of Beeloond."

Kay Tu's servomotors made a faint groaning noise which could almost have been a sigh. "Of all the plots in all the world, the author has to put us in this one..."


	7. Chapter 7

"Even Saw used to sound scared when he talked about Beeloond." Jyn tried to keep the tremor out of her voice.

"I've seen some of the few beings who've escaped – they're broken, absolutely broken." Cassian's face was a grim mask. "Specially their finger-nails."

"It's the thin, flat blocks – very hard to prise apart." Kay Tu felt the need to add this rather obvious piece of information.

"And all because the emperor insists that all his ships should be white, or white and shades of grey. And we all know how rare the grey bricks are," said Jyn.

Kay Tu turned his head to her and gave her an accusing look. "Why are you spelling 'gray' in a non-standard manner?"

"Because I'm from Vallt. The space port of Born-Vil to be precise." Jyn gave a knowing grin. "Famous for producing the most addictive substance in the galaxy."

"Spice?" said Cassian. "I didn't think that came from that sector."

"No, C." Jyn raised an eyebrow. Fancy that, getting one over on the intelligence officer. She wouldn't let him forget that in a hurry.

"C is the street name for the drug with active ingredient theobromine," Kay supplied. "Highly addictive, particularly to female lifeforms, in which its effects mimic some of the neurotransmitters released during sexual climax..."

Cassian swallowed. That was not an image he wanted to think about in connection with Jyn. Well, he did, but he wasn't going to. He definitely wasn't. Wasn't going to give The Writer that satisfaction. Oh no, there were no images of her, tousled hair spread across his pillow, eyes dark with passion, lips parted in ecstasy. No, those images definitely weren't going through his mind. They'd found a plot, after all. He let himself slide back down the wall of the ship's hold, grimacing with pain as he did so. Jyn turned to look at him, a look of concern on her face.

"Can we get back to the subject," he said, hastily resorting to distraction tactics. H gave what he hoped was a sardonic raise of his eyebrows. "Chirrut, Baze and Bodhi are being taken to Beeloond, so clearly we need to go and rescue them."

Jyn nodded. "I'll go and set coordinates for Beeloond..."

"No!"

Cassian's interruption surprised her. She looked at him.

"We can't fly a stolen Imperial shuttle onto one of the most heavily fortified Imperial bases around."

"We did on Scarif..."

"Yes, and if they have half a centim of intelligence between them, they'll have beefed up their security since. No, we jump to the outer rim, get some medical care, sell this, buy a small, anonymous freighter with the credits, then jump to Beeloond."

"What are we going to do with the pilot?" asked Jyn.

"Airlock?" Cassian suggested.

"I'm sorry, Captain, I can't do that," Kay replied. Jyn found it hard to tell whether the droid was having a sudden and unusual attack of conscience, or telling some sort of private joke that he and Cassian shared. The slight twitch at the corner of Cassian's mouth suggested the latter.

A muffled sound of disagreement came from the pilot.

"We could put her down on a primitive planet, in the middle of a primitive society at least three week's walk from the nearest spaceport," Jyn suggested.

"You are too soft-hearted for your own good sometimes," Cassian muttered.

6.626068E-34

Which was how, after getting Cassian patched up, they found themselves in a down-at-heel cantina on Ephemora III.

By this stage in the evening, Jyn was feeling more than a little buzzy from the cheap Corellian beer and the heavy scents of various less legal substances filling the atmosphere of the cantina. She stretched her arms above her head, getting the kinks out of her spine. As she did so, her top rode up, exposing her midriff and the curve of her hips above her low-slung pants. She caught Cassian. There was a glint in those brown eyes, an unmistakable glint. More and more these were throwing her off balance. Because the trouble was she had some memories from before Scarif, memories of glances that seemed to burn through the protective layer she'd built round herself. But she didn't know whether these memories were real, or planted by The Writer.

Abruptly, Cassian's expression changed. He looked taken aback, almost frightened. She followed his gaze down to her hip, to the flowing script there.

"What does it say?" He definitely sounded frightened.

"This? You think..." She pressed her lips together as she realised where he was going with this.

"Is it… a soulmate mark?"

She couldn't take it any longer. She burst out laughing. "No! It's a botched tattoo from when I was 14 and stupid. It says 'only the good die young.' At least that's what the tattooist told me it said. I couldn't read the script on that planet. For all I know it says 'half a kilo of bantha mince and a couple of cabbages.'"

Cassian's mouth relaxed into that familiar almost-a-smile-if-you-knew-which-angle-to-look-from. "Thank kriff for that." Then he gave her a slightly sheepish look and pulled up his shirt. Ideograms, rather than script. Just on that flat area, slightly below and in from his hip bone, near to the V in his muscles that led… Jyn swallowed, and tried not to follow that V downwards.

"I was a mature 16 year old when I got this."

"And it says?"

"Well, what I asked for was a quote from my favourite smashball player: 'I spent most of my credits on drink, girls and fast speeders. The rest I just wasted.'"

Jyn snorted her beer across the table.

"Of course it could also say 'Your turn to clean the latrines.' I never entirely trusted the guy who did it."

Suddenly his expression changed, from reasonably relaxed, almost smiling (if you knew where to look) to his more usual cold, hard stare. For a moment Jyn wondered if he'd spent as many hours as a teenager as she had, staring into the mirror, perfecting his "murder stare". Or maybe it just came naturally to him. She followed his gaze. An Adumarian with iridescent green skin strolled towards their table, and slid onto the couch at right angles to the one Jyn sat on.

"So, you wish to sell a space ship. And buy one..." The being left the question of "why the kriff would you want to do that?" hanging in the air.

"We're downsizing," Jyn deadpanned. "Looking for something a bit more eco-friendly, a hybrid maybe..."

Cassian shot her a look.

6.626068E-34

 _Yes, I really am going there with the plot - the clue was in the name of the story, after all... Mwa ha ha. And apologies to Felicity Jones for putting her real-life birthplace into the story._


	8. Chapter 8

An hour or so of haggling later, Jyn and Cassian made their way back to the spaceport with the keys to a low-light-yearage second hand Beemer Eye-Eight. At least the Adumarian had said it was low-light-yearage. Of course it was more than likely that he'd clocked it.

Kay Tu emerged from the shadow of a hanger, with a large bundle in sacking over his shoulder.

"Seriously, Jyn, we have to get rid of her. We can't run an impromptu retirement scheme for Imperial shuttle pilots." Cassian's tone of voice suggested that he knew that he wasn't going to get anywhere. There was a muffled squeak of outrage from inside the sacking.

They made their way across the duracrete apron to where the Beemer stood. Jyn was amused to noticed that Kay Tu seemed actually impressed by their purchase. Cassian activated the key fob, and a swan-wing door opened, then a ramp moved smoothly to the ground. They made their way up.

"Not really a freighter is it?" said Kay.

"Mmm, more of a rich-boy runaround," Cassian admitted.

"And how," Kay asked, "Is the idea of a rich-boy deciding to holiday on Beeloond in any way plausible? The odds on a rich-boy visiting that planet are up there with my enjoying an intelligent conversation with an organic life form." He hoisted the sacking-covered pilot from his metal shoulder and placed her on the deck, before turning his visual sensors back towards Cassian. If ever a droid was capable of looking sceptical, Jyn mused, it was Kay.

"Admit it," Kay said grumpily. "You just wanted to impress _her._ This isn't a freighter, it's a fanny magnet. In the Alderaanian sense of 'fanny', rather than the Corellian sense."

"I am here, you know," said Jyn, huffily.

"Regrettably, yes," Kay replied.

They handcuffed the kidnapped Imperial to a bulkhead, in the small cargo hold, then loaded the supplies. Cassian went forward and settled into the pilot's seat, Jyn followed him. Kay Tu attempted to get in on the act. There was a bit of jostling in the entrance to the cabin.

"I'm co-piloting."

"I've always been the co-pilot."

"Guys, guys, just settle down. I think I can lift this bird on my own. Go make yourselves useful taunting each other in the cargo hold or something."

Cassian's hands ghosted over the controls. Just for a moment, Jyn wondered why the kriff running pre-flight checks could be described as "ghosting," then gave up the unequal struggle against the surging, inexorable tide of bad metaphors. With an efficiency borne of years of practice, the captain taxied the craft to the take-off area, then hit the boosters and pulled back on the yoke, sending the spaceship soaring upwards. They punched through the atmosphere into near orbit, and he quickly laid in calculations for the hyperspace jump.

"Punch it," he said, before realising he'd told both his putative co-pilots to bugger off earlier. With a snort of annoyance he punched it himself. The stars blurred together as the craft made the leap into the void.

"Now you get your turn. Kay, mind the shop. The jump should take about six hours, so Jyn and I should use it to get some sleep."

"Sleep?" said Kay Tu, dryly. Jyn wondered if they should retrofit the droid with fake facial hair so he could get in on the whole eyebrow raising thing.

"Yes, sleep," said Cassian through gritted teeth. "We have a plot now, remember?"

Cassian swung himself up out of the pilot's chair. Mmm, his long legs were kind of cute, Jyn thought. He pushed his way past her and stalked past her into the cabin behind. Cute ass too. _Dammit!_ The Writer was at it again. She followed him, arriving just in time to catch the sleeping bag he threw at her. With a sigh she settled down on the opposite side of the cabin from him, trying to get comfortable on one of the acceleration couches.

Cassian lay down on the other couch and glowered at her. He was obviously still cross about her earlier row with Kay Tu. Or was over-compensating for their author's attempts to invade their heads. She watched through her lashes as he closed his eyes. At first his jaw was clenched shut in annoyance, but gradually it began to relax as he started to fall asleep.

Jyn rolled over, feeling annoyed with herself for watching. Just as she was beginning to drift off herself, the door to the cockpit opened.

"Something the matter, Kay," she murmured.

"Uh, oh, err, you're in separate couches… erm, good, huh, as you were..."

Jyn twigged to what was going on. "Don't go getting all weirdly voyeuristic on us, under the guise of carrying out research into human mating rituals."

Kay Tu's servomotors squeaked as he shrugged in a mechanical approximation to an "as if I would" gesture.

The door to the cockpit shut again. She heard Cassian stir at the other side of the cabin, and turned her head to look at him. His eyes opened slightly.

"Mmm, querida," he whispered. Then his eyes shut again.

Feeling strangely comforted, she went to sleep.

Kay woke them five hours later. At least three less than Jyn could have done with. Her eyes still felt gritty. She accepted the mug of kaf gratefully. As Kay retreated to the cockpit to check the coordinates for dropping out of hyperspace, she looked over the rim of her mug at Cassian.

"So, 'querida'. What does that mean?"

Cassian gave a start, then stared down at his own mug. If she didn't know better she'd have thought he was avoiding her gaze.

"Um, when did I say that?"

"Last night, as you were going off to sleep."

"Ah, erm, I was dreaming. Yes, dreaming..." Now he was definitely looking evasive. "Uh, dreaming about a meet gone wrong. With one of the Hutt family. Err, it means 'bantha fucker'."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

Jyn got the distinct impression the subject was now closed as far as Cassian was concerned. She put her empty mug on the shelf behind the acceleration couch, and swung her legs onto the floor.

"Guess I'd better go check on the prisoner." She headed through the small hatch that led to the cargo hold. To her surprise, the former Imperial pilot was asleep, head cushioned by what looked like… Cassian's blue jacket.

A strange, unaccountable emotion washed through her. It began as a clenching of her jaw then moved steadily downwards, culminating in a sick, clenching feeling in her stomach. What the kriff was going on now? Could it be? No, why would she feel that?

Her train of thought was interrupted by Cassian following her into the hold. Before she could stop herself, Jyn blurted the first thing that came into her head.

"What's she doing with your jacket?" And as the words left her mouth, in a considerably angrier tone than she'd been intending, she realised the horrible truth. She was jealous. Jealous for no reason whatsoever. Actually, jealous for a rather obvious reason, now she came to think of it. The Writer. Meanwhile Cassian turned and yelled the length of the ship.

"Kay Tu – why the hell have you given the prisoner my jacket?"

"Did I? My malfunctioning diodes must have led to an unaccountable moment of empathy," Kay shot back.

The shouting woke the prisoner. Jyn watched as her eyes opened. Then something strange started to happen. It was almost as if the prisoner's features started to take shape beneath Jyn's gaze. What had previously been a blank, almost cartoon like oval that Jyn hadn't really thought about beyond its belonging to a convenient deus ex machina to deliver a means of escape in the nick of time, started to reform itself into features.

For a moment, the features flickered like a badly tuned hologram. Jyn's first guess was that the Imp must be a Ylix-it shapeshifter. Odd, she thought the Imperials mainly used humanoids. Then, as she watched more closely, she realised the pilot's form was shimmering between that of a plump, nondescript middle aged woman with faded mousey hair in a scruffy braid (and a grey streak at the temples), and a much younger, slimmer version. Gradually the shape seemed to settle on the younger version, and as it did so, a few subtle, but minor changes took place. The hair became a few shades lighter, settling into a corn-coloured blonde. The eyes darkened to a rather more vivid blue. The wrinkles around them, and the crepey skin on the lids, became smooth. The jaw, already firmer and lacking the sagginess of the older version, became better defined. For a moment, the bust-line became fuller, then shrank again, then settled somewhere in between (while this was going on, frown lines appeared momentarily on the pilot's brow, as if some sort of internal struggle were going on). Then, as a last adjustment, the pilot's legs appeared to grow a couple of inches.

Jyn risked a glance at Cassian. He stood, transfixed. At first she wondered if it was due to the undoubted physical charms of their new, improved prisoner. But Cassian took a quick look in her direction and she saw an unmistakable look of fear in his eye. He reached out and grasped her by the forearm, steering her quickly through the door back into the passenger cabin, and slamming the hatch firmly behind them.

"Is she a Ylix-it shape-shifter?" Jyn asked.

"No. Worse," came Cassian's terse reply. His lips were tight, his brown eyes burning with tension.

"What?"

"She's a self-insert..."

 _6.626068E-34_

 _Thank you for all the reviews - they are much appreciated._

 _So, several people have suggested that I should do a self-insert, and who am I to resist giving my lovely readers what they want? And in the finest tradition of self inserts, she's me as I'd like to be, not as I am. The boobs of course are my internal feminist struggle going on - do I want to make myself devastatingly sexy, or do I object to the objectification? (In the end I went with the reaction I had when I was pregnant, when I used to look at my new endowments and think "these are not mine... aliens from outer space have stolen mine and replaced them with a pair I do not recognise...")_

 _If any Americans would like to suggest the colloquial translation of the British "fanny magnet" (where fanny of course means vulva/vagina - yes, that's why we giggle hysterically when you talk about fanny packs) I'd be interested to hear it. A certain type of laddish young man of limited intellect might use the phrase "fanny magnet" to describe a sports car._


	9. Chapter 9

They'd interrogated the pilot. She'd claimed her name was Xanntha Shidra. The dog tags seemed to bear that out. Not a combat pilot – they'd guessed that from how badly she'd handled a blaster. Eventually they'd agreed to keep her locked in the cargo hold while they were on the surface of the planet. In the mean time, she was sulking in the corner, handcuffed to one of the acceleration couches.

The plan was a simple one, in the first instance – head for the mining town close to the prison camp, collect intel, assess what the weaknesses were. Cassian had spent their few remaining credits on a cheap speeder to get them there. So cheap Jyn had her reservations about whether it would manage to make the return journey.

Crucial to the plan was getting some sort of a feel for prisoner shift patterns, and when the guards changed shifts. Then they could think about infiltration.

"So, we set?" Jyn asked, checking the vibroblade was tucked in its usual place in her boot. For good measure, she took her blaster out of its holster and checked its charge levels. Cassian answered.

"Yes. Kay Tu – you have to be ready to take off if anything goes wrong. You've got the rendezvous coordinate?"

"Unlike you, I do not need to be told everything twice," Kay Tu replied testily.

"Okay, we make our way into the town, try to blend in, hit a few cantinas, see what information we can pick up, then head back here to plan our next move." Cassian looked at Jyn. She raised her chin in that way Cassian now recognised, the way that told him she was ready for anything that came their way.

Kay Tu sidled (if that was the right word to use for a 7' something droid) up to Cassian's side and pressed a bundle of small foil squares into his hand.

"What the kriff? Kay!"

"I put the probability of The Writer placing you in a situation where copulation becomes inevitable at… very high indeed. I think you should be prepared."

"Uh, excuse me, I do _not_ think of him that way," yelped Jyn.

"Oh honey, please!" Xaanntha drawled. "We're talking about a man so attractive he can even make pants with elasticated ankles look sexy.."

Jyn shot her a look that should have reduced her to stardust on the spot – scorched, ashen stardust from a brown giant. Cassian was similarly unimpressed (albeit oblivious to the tendrils of green-eyed jealousy currently weaving their way through Jyn's brain).

"Mierda! Either gag her or shove her in the cargo hold," he ordered. He glared at Jyn. "I told you we should have shoved her out the airlock."

"I'm beginning to agree," Jyn responded grimly. As he turned towards the cockpit, though, she couldn't help taking a quick look at his ankles. Force-dammit, the pants really were elasticated!

6.626068E-34

They arrived at the small township at dusk, and found a cantina which served food of sorts. Some sort of grey coloured mess of synth protein, flavourless gelatinous beans and an over-stewed cabbage-like substance. As he picked at the mush in the bowl, Cassian idly wondered why in hell, if you were making synth protein, you'd go to the trouble of replicating gristle.

But disgusting as the food was, the cantina proved a good choice in other respects. It was the sort of low rent dive which didn't even have a toilet – customers had to head over the muddy courtard for a piss. The window had a broken pain covered with a sheet of plas-board, the bar tender openly wore a blaster on his hip. Jyn and Cassian had tucked themselves in a narrow recess within listening distance of a much larger table of prison guards enjoying a few off-duty drinks. They sat, elbow to elbow, on a low couch with dirty stained fabric visible even in the semi-darkness. In front of them was a sticky table which bore archaeological strata of the previous lunar cycle's menu. The dim light flickering from grubby fittings in the low, smoke-stained ceiling meant they could fade into the background all too easily.

"Don't take this personally. Just we've got to do something while we eavesdrop on the next table," Cassian whispered into Jyn's ear. He put an arm round her and started to nuzzle his way from her ear down to her collar and back. Jyn almost jolted, as if given an electric charge. He could have given her a bit more warning… She swallowed, hard. Tried to ignore the warmth in her belly.

He wasn't really touching her, just making it look to any passers by like they were making out. His lips stayed a few millimetres from her skin, and the only real sensation was his breath, warm against her neck. A bit of her mind registered the fact that in its own way, this was even more of a turn-on than him actually kissing her skin would have been. The tantalising promise, held just out of reach...

 _Fuck!_ Jyn decided that this was not helpful. How the hell could she concentrate on the conversation with him doing that? Still, she supposed she should play along, so she let her head loll back against the back of the couch and shut her eyes, before bringing her hand up to run up and down Cassian's spine.

Was that a slight catch in his breathing? The hand round her back tightened in the fabric of her shirt, and the fingers of his other hand started to weave their way through her hair. _Shit!_ This was looking less and less like a good idea. Especially since she had no clue whether it was her idea, Cassian's, or The Writer's. Fortunately, fate (or the demands of the rather flakey plot) intervened in the form of words from the next table. Suddenly, her whole attention was focussed on the group of prison guards. And, she guessed, Cassian's too, for she felt the sudden hint of cold air against her skin as he breathed in sharply.

"Yeah, I moved him off brick-breaking duties and into the workshop. The guy's a wizard with machines. I'll have to get as much out of him as I can in a short time. Only got a couple of days before the interrogation squad show up. I wasn't meant to hear it, but the major was on the comms to HQ – seems the guy is some sort of defector from our side, ex shuttle pilot. Which I guess explains why he can fix anything."

"Anything except his own teeth, fingers, ribs, once the interrogation squad have finished with him." The man gave a nasty laugh. The first man smiled back, bearing his teeth.

"Anyway, I'm off for a piss..." he said, and got up, swaying slightly.

Jyn turned to Cassian. "I've got this." She followed the man out through the low doorway into the courtyard, melting into the shadows as she watched him head for the latrines. Cassian headed there himself, just a few metres behind the prison guard, earning an angry look from Jyn. But instead of going inside, he took up station in a doorway in the darkest corner of the yard.

Jyn didn't have to wait long. The guard reappeared, fastening his pants as he came. She waited till he was almost on her, then lurched out of the shadows, pretending to be unsteady on her feet, and collided with him.

"Oops, sorry!" She righted herself with the aid of a hand to his chest. Then spread her fingers and glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. "Hey, big guy..."

"Don't you have a boyfriend inside?" From the tone of his voice, this was an exploratory salvo rather than a dismissal.

Jyn gave a snort. "He's paying for the 'girlfriend experience'. But I don't mind dumping him for a more… advantageous offer."

Back in the shadows by the latrines, Cassian felt his senses go onto high alert. He could see the game Jyn was playing, but it was high stakes, with everything to lose if it went wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck went up. Meanwhile, the man leant in towards Jyn, backing her up until she was against the wall. He placed his hands flat on the blockwork on either side of her head.

"And suppose I just insist on a quick freebie?" The man's voice had lost all traces of humour. Jyn reached for the vibroblade in her vest, but the man reacted as quick as a striking Craif-lizard; he had his hand round her wrist in a split second.

Cassian normally prided himself on his controlled detachment. But suddenly a red mist came down. Even so, he moved silently as a cat, or appropriately cat-like-creature-in-a-galaxy-far-away. Before the man knew what had hit him, he found himself spun round, a blade to his throat. Not a vibroblade – the old fashioned serrated hunting knife Jyn remembered from a few days earlier. Within moments, he had hustled the man out of the courtyard and into a secluded back alley, where he carried out a brutally efficient interrogation before leaving the prison guard in a dumpster.

Jyn wondered for a moment whether she should be torn between her naturally compassionate nature (as evidenced by being nice to small children in war zones) and angst over Cassian's amoral, almost psychopathic streak, or whether she should let the career criminal side triumph and make a laconic quip about being saved a fate worse than death. The former would set up several chapters of angst quite nicely, and spare her the risk of the return of "lovely daddy Cassian." The latter seemed more in character, and frankly, less fuss at this point in the plot. She was very much inclined towards laconic quip at this point. Unless of course, the chapters of angst could lead to a huge fall out, passionate angry sex, then hot make-up sex… She squashed that train of thought rather firmly.

"Come on, let's get out of here," said Cassian. They glanced quickly up and down the street. No-one was in sight. Cassian caught Jyn by the elbow and hurried her across to the speeder. She hopped into the driver's seat and hit the starter. Nothing. Just a whining noise which died almost as soon as it had stared.

"Hijo di puta!" Cassian spat.


	10. Compulsory Platonic bed-sharing episode

Cassian couldn't believe it. Of all the lame plot devices to get them into bed together, The Writer had gone for the broken-down speeder and tavern-only-has-one-room-left ploy. He eyed the bed suspiciously. At least it didn't look too narrow. He took his outer clothes off, leaving his thermals on. Thank the force Beeloond was a cold planet. Surely a long-sleeved thermal and long johns had to be a successful passion-killer. Just to be doubly sure, he dug in the pocket of his jacket (now hanging from the bedpost) and pulled out a beanie hat. That should definitely do the trick. Cautiously, he lay down on the very edge of the bed.

Only to find himself rolling inexorably to the middle like an out-of-control spaceship heading over the event horizon of a black hole. The mattress was completely shot.

"Hey, keep to your own side, bed hog," Jyn grumbled.

"You try it – this thing's got a deeper gravitational well than a gas giant orbiting a neutron star," Cassian shot back. He wriggled back towards the edge of the mattress and hooked his heel over the rim to try to keep himself in place, then glanced back up at Jyn. She too appeared to be trying the passion-killer approach: a shapeless sweat shirt and her own thermal long johns. The trouble was the long johns were made from a clingy material which showed off her ass, and the oversized sweat shirt made her look fragile and vulnerable. He knew this was an illusion – she was tough as tempered durasteel. But it still made him want to wrap his arms round her and look after her.

Force-dammit, this was not what he needed. The Writer was at it again. He swallowed, remembering the times before Scarif when he'd had similar thoughts. Maybe it wasn't The Writer, maybe it was real. For a moment, a warmth flowed through him at this thought. Then it struck him that presumably The Writer could also give him whatever memories she wanted. _Kriff!_ He hated feeling like this. He frowned and screwed his eyes shut.

He felt the mattress sag beside him, then felt Jyn thrashing and struggling to stop herself falling into the black hole in its centre. The vibrations stopped after a few moments, to be replaced by a sharp yank on the bed covers. A brief tug-of-war ensued before an uneasy truce evolved, with Cassian uncomfortably aware of cold drafts swirling round his knees. They lay in silence for a few moments. Then…

 _Prrrrrrp._

"Dulce madre de la fuerza!" Cassian started to cough and choke.

"Sorry – that bloody stew of cabbage and beans. It's gone straight through me."

The only thing to be said in favour of the smell was that Cassian was pretty sure it was genuine. Writers of this sort of thing didn't really go for build up of sexual tension accompanied by stinky farts. It just didn't work as part of a romantic scene. Eventually the pong dissipated. Cassian drifted into a fitful sleep, only to wake far too soon, gripped by the bitter cold. The bed covers were nowhere to be seen. Actually, scratch that – he could see them – wrapped in a cocoon round Jyn. He wondered whether he could disentangle them without waking her, then thought _like I give a fuck_ and seized the corner of them, giving a good hard pull.

"'Oi, sod off!" Jyn was clearly not amused. She elbowed him in the ribs, hard. Another tug of war ensued. Eventually, neither of them properly covered, they tacitly abandoned the fight.

Next time it was Jyn's turn to be rudely awakened. Cassian was flat on his back, snoring like a macro-fuser with a buggered timing belt. _Roll him onto his side…_ She slid a hand beneath his shoulder blade and tried to push him over so he faced away from her. He was heavier than she remembered from Scarif. She managed to prise him ten or so centimetres from the mattress, then he flopped back. Momentum carried him onto his other side. The good news was the snoring stopped. The bad news was he was now in the middle of the mattress, and not only hogging most of the bed, but making the dip in its surface so steep that she needed retro-rockets to arrest the inexorable slide towards him.

She scrabbled for a moment or two against the coarse sheets, trying to claw her way out towards the edge of the bed, then gave up and let herself slide into the hollow. Cassian was warm – furnace-hot, in fact. Comfortingly so. It was a while since she'd felt anything other than shivery and clammy in bed. His body was solid, curled around her back. His breathing ruffled the tendrils of hair on her neck. With a shock, she realised she could get used to this. Really easily.

Cassian made a vague, sleepy murmur, then slid his arm round her waist. Another shock, this time at just how nice it felt. How right it felt. She felt his breath again, dancing across her skin. Almost of its own volition, her hand drifted down on top of his. Seemingly in a reflex response, his fingers threaded themselves between hers.

"Querida."

His voice was so muffled with sleep, she wasn't sure if he was actually awake. What was it he'd said it meant? Bantha shagger? Jyn still wasn't sure she was buying that one. For starters, the way he said it really, really didn't sound like someone saying "bantha shagger". Much too soft. Gentle. The word wrapped round her and embraced her, every bit as warm and comforting as her arm.

She gave herself a mental shake. This wouldn't do at all. He'd said it meant "bantha shagger", and she was damn well going to take it at face value, and that was that. She dredged through her memory for the last person from Fest she'd met, a trader in spare parts for speeders (now, that would have been useful a couple of hours back). What was that phrase he'd taught her? Oh yeah, that was it… But her voice as she said the words was every bit as soft and gentle as Cassian's had been.

"Y tu mamá también."

6.626068E-34

The first thing Jyn registered was the comfortable warmth. A languorous, almost sensual feeling washed over her. There was a warm, unmistakably male body behind her, spooning against her. Unmistakably male? Well, definitely a case of morning glory. Mmm, but whose? Dark hair, a scruffy beard, brown eyes that could shift from stone cold to warm as a summer's day in a split second – but seemed to save the latter for her, and her alone. Cassian… the man who felt like home, who felt like… her everything.

 _Cassian!_ She shot to the edge of the bed. As she moved, she was hit by a waft of… Oh force, the smell. Two bodies worth of rank, several-days-old armpit, suddenly released from the covers of the bed. She rolled over. Cassian gave a huff of breath as his sleep was disturbed, and she was assaulted by a new smell. Kriff, the guy had morning breath to strip the paint of a ship's hull. Mind you, she reflected, she probably had as well.

On reflection, thank fuck for smelly pits and tonsils – those initial feelings on waking up had been… No, just focus on the smell. Much safer. And try to forget the fact that all indications were that he was… more than adequately endowed.

Cassian opened his eyes and rubbed at them blearily with the backs of his hands.

"Kriff, I need a piss." Then he looked at Jyn with something close to embarrassment and added, "But, ladies first."

Jyn was about to say "I can wait" when it dawned on her that he probably didn't want to get out from under the covers in case she realised he had a stiffy you could hang your coat on. She stifled a grin – he wasn't to know she already knew. Unless of course he was now doing the whole "you know that I know that you think that I feel that you..." business.

She swung her feet out of the bed and went to the fresher. By the time she got back, he was fastening his pants up.

"So," he said, casually, "we have to come up with a plan to infiltrate the prison workshop."

"I think I might have an idea," Jyn replied.


	11. He loves me, he loves me not

"I've got an idea..."

And that's how they found themselves outside the cleaners/laundry on the main drag.

"Uniforms," Jyn explained, leading the way down the dark alley at the side of the shop. There was a dumpster, smelling of rotting meat and dubious vegetables, which Jyn used to gain the height to get to the window. A quick touch of a vibroblade to the catch, and the window swung open. Cassian scrambled up beside her and helped to boost her up and through the narrow opening. A few moments later, her head and shoulders popped back out, and she shoved out a soft bundle wrapped in a pillow case. A couple of grunts (like the ones she'd made in her sleep last night, Cassian reflected), and she'd wriggled her way back through, landing beside him with a hollow clang on the lid of the dumpster.

They hid behind the dumpster out of sight of the main drag, and changed into the stolen guards' uniforms. Jyn tried not to look at Cassian, all too keenly aware of the danger posed by The Writer, but still couldn't help registering (1) his toned abs; (2) his understated, wiry physique; (3) a very pert ass; (4) totally dreadful taste in underpants; (5) very muscular thighs and; (6) a toned ass… _Force-dammit, I'm repeating myself now_ , she thought in exasperation. Still, the tactic of numbering his attributes did seem to have put a certain amount of emotional distance between her mind and her lust. _Keep thinking about the underpants_ , she told herself. _Seriously, who'd have thought a spy/ cold-blooded killer would wear underpants with cartoon wamp rats on them?_

As for the effect Jyn's body had on Cassian, that could be summed up by his discomfiture over the fact that the day-glo wamp rat with the absurdly anthropomorphised smile at the front of the underpants was now doing some sort of dance. He turned his back on Jyn, willing it to be still, while he pulled his pants up.

They stashed the bag with their normal clothes behind a broken ventilation grill on one of the buildings and headed out of town towards the prison complex. As they got closer, they could see the towers which housed the ventilation and elevator machinery for the underground brick mine, not to mention the vast slag-heaps of yellow bricks which are far and away the least useful colour going.

"What do we do about ID papers?" asked Jyn.

Cassian fished in his pocket. "This is the one I swiped from the guy last night. I suggest a similar procedure for you."

Jyn scowled. "You mean grab the first female brunette guard we come across, drag her down a back alley and beat her up, then steal her ID?"

"Precisely."

For a moment Jyn wondered whether to have an attack of conscience over this heartless suggestion. Shouldn't his feelings for her be giving Cassian moral qualms by now? Surely he needed a story arc, one in which suffering and comradeship would turn him from a cold-blooded killer into a traumatised veteran tortured by guilt at the realisation of what he'd done, eventually to be redeemed by the forgiving power of love? In fact, shouldn't she feel slightly insulted by the fact that his cold-hearted pragmatism was indirect evidence that he didn't love her _enough_? Was it that she was too independent? Or had she not done a good enough job of exploring the potential love-triangle with the blonde shuttle pilot? Perhaps, thinking of shuttle pilots, she should have hinted at a love-triangle with Bodhi, just to pique Cassian's jealousy? Oh Force, what had she done wrong? There had to be something wrong. Even if only to give an excuse for several thousand words of over-thinking the situation.

Cassian fixed her with an icy stare.

"It's a war. Do you want to rescue Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze or not?"

Jyn gave herself a shake as if he'd just poured cold water over her.

"I think I see a likely looking mark over there," she conceded.

6.626068E-34

They made it through the security gate without incident. Fortunately the ID papers they'd filched were old school – hard to tell anything much about the holder from the grainy holo on the cards, and in any case the gate guard didn't give them more than the most cursory of glances.

"So, we are agreed?" asked Cassian. "We head for the research labs and try to find Bodhi first."

"Yes," agreed Jyn.

"Good."

"Good."

There was a long, almost thoughtful pause. Then Jyn spoke.

"Why do we keep saying that?"

"I don't know – it's not the sort of thing I remember saying from before Scarif."

"Yet – it feels like another of those moments when words are being put into our mouths. Like The Writer is convinced it's the sort of thing we would say, even though I don't remember ever saying anything like it."

"Yes, it's a totally dumb-ass sort of conversation to have… 'good'… 'good'. Who the fuck says something like that? If I wrote dialogue like that, I'd leave it on the cutting room floor," Cassian said.

"I dunno," Jyn mused. "Delivered right, it might be quite touching – you know, star-crossed lovers in denial about their feelings, oldest trope in the book. That sort of unresolved sexual tension keeps holovid stories going through series after series. Unless the writers are stupid enough to let the characters actually kiss one another, like they did in the film version of _Outer-rim X-wing Files._ If they do that, all the romantic tension just deflates like a soggy soufflé."

A momentary look of disappointment flitted across Cassian's face. Reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Jyn's plump lips and that cute little pout she made, he decided to focus on the job in hand. With a grunt of annoyance, he pushed the door to the workshop open.

The room behind the door was large and dimly lit – it looked like it was set up for some sort of experiment which needed black-out conditions. In the centre of the room, there was a pool of light cast by a single overhead light. There at a workbench, a figure stood carefully fitting dimpled plastic components together, her brow knitted in concentration as she followed the instructions in a small, brightly coloured booklet. Beside the door, a guard stood, blaster in hand.

"Who are you?" demanded the guard. "This is a secured area… You need special clearance..."

"Major security breach, we're here as backup," said Jyn, heading to the guard's left. Cassian headed for his other flank. The man didn't know which of these interlopers to watch. Their uniforms checked out, but there was something about them. He eyed the man suspiciously, then, seeing her reach towards her jacket, his attention flitted to Jyn. Cassian seized the opportunity, and took a stride forward, sliding a vibroblade between his neck vertebrae.

"Oh, Rings of Xanth, you just killed him!" The scientist (it had to be a scientist, she was wearing a white lab coat) clapped her hands over her mouth in horror. From the gloom behind her, a familiar figure, looking if anything even skinnier and twitchier than last time they'd seen him, stepped into the light.

"You came back for me."

Jyn ran forward and gave Bodhi a hug.


	12. This time, it's blueprint 75149

Bodhi looked quite ruffled by the time first Jyn and then Cassian had finished hugging him. He still wasn't entirely used to the idea that there were people out there who _liked_ him.

"What now?" he said, hesitantly.

"We bust out Baze and Chirrut then get the hell out of here," said Jyn.

"We have to take her with us," Bodhi replied, gesturing to the scientist, who had sunk to the floor and was now sitting there as if sheltering behind the workbench, rocking slightly, her hands clasped round her knees.

"You are kidding, right?" said Cassian. "Look, if you're having an attack of conscience – and I know you're a nice guy – we won't shoot her. We'll tie her up and stuff her in a cupboard. But we can't have her slowing us down."

"No, you don't understand. We got the plans off in time, but that's only half of it," Bodhi explained. "Since I've been working here, I've heard things. Two can play at industrial sabotage. There's a missing component on the X-wings the rebellion are using. For the launch mechanism of the proton torpedoes. The techies here call it an 'external thumb', kind of a joke based on the toy scale models you can buy for kids, where kids launch the pretend torpedoes by flicking them with their thumbs… We used to spend hours doing that when I was a kid, playing space battles… It's one of the reasons I joined the academy..."

"Can you get to the point, Bodhi?" asked Jyn.

"Okay, the deal is this – there's an extra component, without it the torpedoes won't launch cleanly – they'll detach from the wing fixings, but the targeting will be off. We need to get it. This guy called Professor Furter has it. But he heard a couple of days back that Imperial intelligence were about to bust him, so he went into hiding. She," Bodhi gestured to the scientist, "is the only person who knows where he's gone."

"Great, just great," muttered Jyn. "That's another OC to handle."

"And worse than that," said Cassian, "Now we don't know which one is the self-insert. Could be either of them."

"OC? Self insert?" Bodhi sounded even more confused than normal.

"We're in a fix-it fic."

Bodhi looked slightly sick. "Oh god, authors do all sorts of things to me in fixits. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Get me out of here. This is worse than mind-torture-by-tentacle." He sank onto the floor beside the scientist and joined her in rocking to and fro. Jyn crouched down beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder. Instinctively he flinched, but then calmed as he realised who it was.

"Bodhi – you've got to be strong. You're the pilot, remember? Here..." Jyn took her back-up blaster from under her jacket and handed it to him. "Keep her covered while we get Baze and Chirrut." Just to be doubly sure, she tied the scientist's hands behind her back, then tethered her to a water pipe.

The next few minutes were a chaotic mess of confusion and blaster-fire. Jyn wanted to shriek that fights weren't like this, that only fanfic could make them this absurd, but for once that didn't seem quite fair. After all, the poor authors were only copying what they'd seen in summer action blockbusters. Twenty enemies dropping to the ground for every shot fired, hundreds of blaster bolts miraculously missing our heroes, running across open space spraying fire indiscriminately, making no use of the available cover.

All things considered, though, Jyn thought, implausibility was probably better than the alternative of the whole cast dying. Fixit or not, she actually quite liked still being around rather than going to her doom in an incandescent glow. Even if (she heaved a wistful sigh as she skilfully shot another guard between the eyes) it had meant a cuddle from Cassian.

Eventually, Jyn and Cassian (having dispatched at least four dozen prison guards) managed to break into the main brick-sorting facility and free the prisoners. No sign of Chirrut and Baze, though. One old lag told them, as he galloped past towards freedom, that he thought the funny geezer in the strange robes and the scary-looking dude he was with were in solitary. Then he ran off, along with the rest of the prisoners, whooping and hollering, into the yard beyond, availing themselves of the blasters conveniently lying by the sides of the dead guards, and forming an impromptu army. For a moment, Jyn thought about giving a rousing speech to raise morale, then decided she'd been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Instead, she turned her attention to breaking the lock codes on the solitary confinement block, while Cassian covered her back, picking off the stray guards that remained with a ruthless (and rather sexy) efficiency. _Force-dammit, The Writer had some strange kinks,_ Jyn reflected.

With a click the lock opened, revealing Chirrut and Baze sitting in a gloomy space about 2 metres square. Chirrut had a ball and was throwing it against the opposite wall with a rhythmic ker-thunk, thwack, as it bounced back into the palm of his hand. The rhythm was somewhat broken by the fact that he seemed to miss as often as he caught it. The latest miss caught Jyn a stinging blow on the nose, and she swore softly.

"What?" said Chirrut, with an insouciant shrug. "I'm blind."

"You two took your time," Baze added.

6.626068E-34

 _Thanks for the very kind reviews - all much appreciated!_


	13. Stone Cold Reader

It took a while to get back to the ship. First they had to get Bodhi and the scientist. If they'd thought Bodhi, with his PTSD, was twitchy, then he had nothing on the scientist. She was freaking out completely. _Mind you_ , thought Jyn, _I suppose if I hadn't grown up through a succession of traumas and abandonments, and had a nice comfortable upbringing followed by a college education followed by a nice job in a nice warm lab with no-one trying to shoot me or stab me, being hussled through the middle of a fire-fight would be a bit traumatising._ Out loud she just said, "Pull yourself together, woman."

Cassian led them back along the road at a jog, finally reaching the town. They managed to find the speeder they'd left the day before, and squeezed everyone into the back seat somehow. Cassian drove, Jyn riding shotgun, blaster at the ready. Sure enough they picked up a tail before they'd even reached the outskirts of town. Baze shot out the back windscreen and started taking pot shots with his huge energy rifle, while Jyn hung out the window, trying to target the driver of the speeder behind them.

The speeder had obviously put out an APB, because within moments it was joined by three others. Baze managed to blow the engine intakes of one of them; Jyn shot the driver of the second neatly between the eyes, double tap. But that still left two. And those two were returning fire. Cassian jinked the speeder left, then right, then left again.

"I can't keep my aim steady," Jyn complained.

"I can't either," Baze added.

"I can't keep my stomach steady," whined the scientist.

"Kriff, she just vommed over me," Bodhi added in tones of disgust.

"Got you, mutha-kriffa!" Baze took out the third of the speeders.

But the fourth one managed to pull alongside them. Cassian swung the wheel hard right, sending his own craft careening into it. As he did so, the passenger leaned across the driver's body to get off a lucky shot. Jyn yelped with pain as the energy bolt scorched her skin. She slumped into the seat. Fortunately, Baze was able to get a direct hit on the driver, and the craft veered away, before hitting a boulder and spinning off the track into the rough terrain beyond. It cartwheeled down a steep slope, exploding in a flash of orange fire.

In the far distance Baze could make out another couple of craft. Someone must have comm-ed them. But Jyn and Cassian's ship was closer. Cassian hit the brakes and turned the wheel, skidding the speeder to a halt behind the ship. He grabbed Jyn, scooping her into his arms, and ran up the loading ramp, while behind him Baze hustled everyone else into the ship.

Cassian laid Jyn gently on the deck plates and reached for the med kit. From somewhere up front, there came the sound of a rather grumpy Kay Tu.

"Don't mind me. I can take off by myself. Even if stretching across to the switches on your side of the cockpit means I'll strain the diodes in my left side. Again."

Despite the grumbling, Kay Tu started the engines. The craft soared up through the atmosphere. As it left the planet's ionosphere behind it, the ship was rocked by a couple of blasts from a pursuing fighter, but Kay was now far enough from the gravitational pull of the planet to punch the hyperdrive. Once the ship was safely in hyperspace, they could relax. While Kay piloted the ship, Cassian crouched down to examine the blaster strike Jyn had been caught by.

"Let me look at that for you," said Cassian.

"It's just a flesh wound," Jyn answered. "A bacta patch will sort it." She eased down the waistband of her pants to show him. It was an angry red colour, but clearly more of a graze than anything else.

"Is that…?" Baze asked.

"A soul-mark? No, it's a botched tattoo," Jyn answered with a laugh.

"What script is it in?" Chirrut asked Baze.

"Devonesian. You can tell by the overly elaborate Rs," Baze answered.

Chirrut gave a sharp intake of breath. "You do realise that some Devonesian tattoo artists are force-sensitive, and sometimes their work consists of revealing markings which were waiting to emerge naturally. Here, let me look."

"Look?" Jyn tried to take refuge in humour to distract herself from the chill fingers of dread clawing at her insides.

"Sense it with the force." Chirrut moved across the cabin and laid his hand on Jyn's skin. She jumped. "Relax, I'm a respectably married man," he added with a chuckle. He ran his fingers over the mark.

"It takes a while to build up an image through the force – but with your help I should be able to translate this… It would be the first words your soul-mate said… or is yet to say to you." Chirrut's mouth quirked into a small smile, the dimples telling Baze that he was up to mischief.

"Of course, first words can be surprisingly mundane… some comment, or a question..." Chirrut felt Jyn tense even more – she was already wound tight as a spring. "A 'where', or a 'what', or a 'when'… in your case, I think a 'when'." Jyn breathed in sharply. Chirrut moved his fingers again. "When… it would have to be an event of significance. Sometimes to do with an event, sometimes a person. A friend or maybe a family member..." He felt Jyn shift under his touch.

Over the other side of the cabin, Cassian stood watching in silence, eyes narrowed, lips drawn into a thin line. Bodhi looked helplessly from one person to another. He knew something momentous was unfolding before him.

"When did you..." Chirrut started.

"Last see your father," Jyn finished, in a hoarse whisper. Her head whipped round towards Cassian. "Oh force, it is a soul bond mark..."

Bodhi gasped. "Oh my… That means… The two of you are destined to be together." He sounded awed and humbled to have witnessed the revelation. Jyn just looked terrified. She glanced towards Cassian, feeling a rising tide of desperation. The captain, for his part, was looking distinctly unmoved.

"Or possibly," he said coolly, "That was one of the best displays of cold reading I've seen."

Baze's mouth twitched, and his shoulders started to shake.

"Cold reading? I don't know what you mean," Chirrut replied, innocently.

Kay Tu's voice drifted in from the cockpit. "It's a technique used by professional conjurers and stage magicians – and fake psychics. Ask sufficiently open-ended, 'either this or that' questions that you can get a response from pretty much anyone, and wait for them to give you clues as to what's on your mind..."

Baze gave a muffled snort of mirth, and Chirrut was unable to contain his giggles any more.

"You bastard, Chirrut," snapped Jyn. Chirrut hastily headed out of reach, back to safety beside Baze, who was now helpless with laughter, tears running down his cheeks. Deprived of the obvious target for her wrath, Jyn turned accusingly to Cassian. "You knew – did you set him up?"

Cassian shook his head. "Think about it – my job is interrogating people. So it's a pretty safe guess, given the context we met in, that my first words to you would be a question. Then Chirrut tried you out on a few opening words, and watched you jump like a startled wamp-rat when he got to 'when'. Then, in case you hadn't noticed – he didn't even say it himself. He started the question, left a huge gap and got you to fill in the rest yourself. No mysterious force required at all."

"How do you know all this," asked Bodhi, his face a picture of confusion.

"You don't think my only interrogation technique is beating the shit out of people and threatening them with a vibroblade, do you? In fact, that's a pretty crap interrogation technique. It's like the old Imperial joke about 'How do you arrest a Hutt? Catch a Gungan and beat the shit out of him till he confesses to being a Hutt.' Violence is a great way of getting people to talk – talk about whatever complete shit they think will make the pain stop. If you want useful information, it's not so good."

Then Cassian paused for a moment. It occurred to him that this level of wishy-washy pacifist liberalism might be another of those out-of-character moments signalling that The Writer was taking over. He added a hasty addendum. "Of course, if someone else is trying to shoot the shit out of you, you can't beat a good healthy dose of violence. Or even better, shoot first."


	14. Bodhi is a gerbil

Having patched up Jyn, Cassian tidied away the med kit.

Bodhi perched on the edge of one of the acceleration couches, looking very uncomfortable. Opposite him, the captured Imperial pilot sat on the floor, handcuffed to the bulkhead. She was eyeing him in much the way a cat-like-creature-from-a-galaxy-far-far-away eyes a mouse-like-creature-from-a-galaxy-far-far-away. It was freaking Bodhi out. Eventually, he could stand the silence no longer. With an air of desperation, he turned to Cassian.

"She's my love interest, isn't she?"

"Honey, it could be worse," said the pilot. "I mean, at least I'm blonde, young and have curves in all the right places. Well, now I've re-written myself I do, anyhow."

"Actually, she's right," said Cassian. "It _could_ be worse. At least you're not being slashed with the young Kylo Ren in complete violation of the laws of canon time line and interspecies relationships."

"Kylo who?" said Baze.

"Interspecies?" squeaked Bodhi, his voice rising an octave. Which was an unfortunate sound for him to make, given Cassian's next words.

"A character who hasn't been born yet. Kay dug around in the internet cache on The Writer's hard drive. Among other stories she's read, there's one where you're bottom to Kylo Ren's top, and I quote (thank you, AO3 tagging system), 'Bodhi is a gerbil'. Seriously, a self-insert is not the worst thing that could happen to you. Specially since at least with her you'd be the one doing the inserting."

"Unless I'm into pegging," the pilot cooed in a breathy voice, adding an attempt at a seductive raise of one eyebrow for good measure. The attempt failed. Bodhi looked even more terrified, if that were possible.

"Of course you could find yourself in an Alpha Cassian/ Omega Bodhi fic," Chirrut interjected.

"Why do I always have to be the omega?" said Bodhi plaintively.

Jyn broke her silence for the first time since her sharp intake of breath as the bacta patch went on. "Alpha and omega? What's that all about? Weird military ranks?"

Cassian looked extremely uncomfortable and rather embarrassed. In fact, Jyn could have sworn he blushed. _Now, that was kinda cute!_ He shuffled awkwardly. His embarrassment wasn't helped in the slightest when Chirrut launched into an explanation.

"It's a type of AU. Basically, it's all about sub/Dom sex. Only to get over the author's internalised qualms about being into kinky sex, they try to make it biologically predetermined."

Jyn cast an eye towards Cassian. He looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up. Clearly Kay had found _a lot_ of this type of thing on The Writer's hard drive. "Tell me more," she said to Chirrut, a wicked twinkle in her eye.

"Alphas are sexually dominant, omegas are sexually submissive. And just to make it even more fun, omegas go into heat every so often. Then the nearest alpha can't help himself and has to shag the omega."

Jyn snorted. "What, you mean like Bakura hounds? Every 40 standard days or so?"

"Oh, nowhere near as regular as that. More like, as dictated by the requirements of what passes for plot."

"Or more like the absence of plot," muttered Cassian bitterly.

Unfortunately for Cassian, Chirrut was really getting into his stride now.

"They do borrow something from the physiology of Bakura hounds, though. The shagging involves something called knotting – you know, where the dominant male's penis gets stuck. Guess it's one way of making the sex last an implausibly long time. And of course..." Chirrut took a sidelong look at Cassian to gauge his reaction, "alphas have unfeasibly large penises and produce epic amounts of semen."

Jyn wasn't too sure about the epic amounts of semen, but the large penis thing didn't seem like such a bad kink. She had certain not entirely unwelcome memories of the night in the black-hole-bed. The captain was, insofar as she'd been able to tell through his pants, rather well endowed. Perhaps she needed to conduct more observations to confirm her recollections. Suppressing a smile, she cast a quick glance towards the crotch of Cassian's elasticated pants. Before she could make much of an assessment, though, Chirrut's next words had him crossing his legs and flinching.

"And omegas have conveniently self lubricating assholes. And when I say it lasts a long time, I mean a LOOOONG time. They have to shag continuously for ages, three to five days, with lots of hair pulling, nipple biting and 'marking', or, as we dull normal people called it way back in our schooldays, giving your partner a hickey."

"And while all this sex is going on," Jyn said with a snort of disbelief, "what happens if, y'know, our heroes find themselves being shot at by the bad guys."

"Well, for a start – dictates of the crap excuse for a plot. That sort of inconvenience never happens, unless it's necessary so that an enemy alpha can arrive and want to rape our heroic alpha's omega, giving the heroic alpha the chance to show how super-duper-alpha-masculine he is by fighting off the baddie alpha. Or if that bit of the plot doesn't happen, there are always betas to keep the show on the road."

"Betas?" quizzed Jyn.

"Ordinary, everyday people who have neither the urge to dominate, nor the urge to be submissive, and thus in this universe are deemed to be completely asexual. But who keep the wheels turning. You know, do all the boring but necessary shit while the alpha and omega are inextricably knotted for three days at an inconvenient moment in the plot."

Jyn looked from Cassian to Bodhi and back. Cassian had sunk onto the other acceleration couch and was sitting with his face in his hands. Only his ears, poking out from his unruly mess of dark hair, gave any indication as to his mental state. They were scarlet with embarrassment. Bodhi had now curled back into a ball, arms clutched round his knees. He was rocking gently to and fro. He might have been heard to mutter, "Force, make me a beta. Please make me a beta..."

"So, in short," said Jyn in a contemptuous voice, "that complete crock of shit self-help book _Female Beings are from Alderaan, Male Beings are from Corellia,_ re-written for some wildly implausible version of a gay relationship, as written by a straight woman with a kink for fantasising about two buff men getting it on. With a sprinkling of really boring asexual people, aka your parents, to do the boring shit like pick the underwear off your bedroom floor and wash your socks."

"Yup, that's about it..." said Chirrut.

"I think I'd rather be a gerbil," Bodhi whimpered.

"But surely there must be something you'd actually like," said Baze.

Bodhi flushed, his cheeks turning red. "No, really, I've decided. I'm going to be asexual. Asexual, do you hear? Force-dammit." He looked up towards the ceiling plates as if somehow he could communicate with The Writer.

Cassian, sensing that there was a chance of finally steering the conversation away from the nightmare that was the omega-verse, decided that attack was the best form of defence.

"You're not getting away that easy," he said, with a sly smirk. "So, if you don't want to be bottom in a gay relationship, how about bossy women instead? Like Princess Leia. You must have seen holovids of her being all commanding on the floor of the Senate. She is _hot…_ well, if you can get past the peculiar pastry-inspired hairdo." Seeing Bodhi look even more embarrassed was confirmation enough, He was onto something here. The pilot quite liked powerful women, it would seem. "Or..." For the first time other than when he'd been in the grips of The Writer's daddy kink, Cassian gave a full-on grin. "Mon Mothma."

Bodhi squirmed.

Baze chipped in with, "Or both..."

"Nnnggggnnnn," Bodhi groaned in a strangled voice.

"So, you're harbouring fantasies about hot threesomes with dominant women while fandom is convinced you're desperately wanting to get it on with Cassian, a whole host of canon characters who haven't even been introduced into our timeline yet, or in some cases, haven't even been born yet, or..." Baze said.

"Or," said Chirrut in his best innocent voice, the one which automatically put all his friends on high alert. He gave a knowing, sidelong glance at Jyn. "Who are in your past..."

"Who do you mean?" asked Jyn. She had a bad feeling about this.

This time it was Cassian's turn to give another wicked grin. "Y tu papà tambien..."


	15. Help, I broke a nail

The ship continued to make its way through hyperspace, engines thrumming insistently in the background. Bodhi had run away – he'd been gone for some twenty minutes or so. Either he had the worst case of constipation in the history of the galaxy, or he was hiding in the toilet. Chirrut, having had his fun yanking the ex-Imperial's chain, was now meditating in a corner as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Baze was engaged in his own form of spiritual communion – stripping and cleaning his energy rifle.

Jyn slid down onto the deck plates beside the captured scientist. Cassian leaned casually against the wall on the other side of the hold, and watched with morbid fascination as she set about trying to make conversation with the captured scientist.

"Hi, I've brought you a couple of ration packs. You must be getting hungry." The scientist eyed Jyn suspiciously, but hunger won out, and she cautiously took one of the packs, ripping it open with her teeth. Jyn tore the other pack herself, and took a bite, presumably in some sort of attempt at solidarity.

"This stuff's a bit crap, but it fills a hole," Jyn added. The word which sprung to Cassian's mind was _prattled_ , but this seemed so unlike Jyn he dismissed it. The former thief continued. "How're you doing? That gunfight must have come as quite a shock, huh? Guess you spent most of your time safely tucked up in your lab."

The scientist shrugged, the shrug of someone who's spent far too many social events being told that they must be so glad they have a noble calling as an egghead, to make up for being a social misfit. In fact, been told it so often they've given up trying to challenge it. Cassian looked more closely at the scientist – short nails on her left hand, long nails on her right. A gwevrah player. There was clearly more to her than a just a test-tube jockey.

She'd shucked off her lab coat in the heat of the spaceship, and Cassian could see a tattoo on her upper arm – looked like she was an avid follower of the Ord Mantell Blasters. Interesting choice of smashball team. Most people followed the Ord Mantell Allstars – they were the team who'd won the league five times in the last thirty galactic contests. The Blasters, on the other hand, were the sort of team you'd support if you'd grown up in the back streets of the planet's capital city. The gritty underdogs that offered training places to local kids, that never quite made it in the league. Bit like the futebol team in his home town back on Fest. Not the best, just the most honest, the most hard working, the only one really worth following. Capable of pulling off the occasional win against much bigger teams, wins which seemed all the sweeter because they were against the odds. Cassian felt a certain affinity for the scientist.

Jyn, however, didn't seem to have taken these details in. Her next words suggested that she had noticed the bitten nails on the woman's left hand (but not the state of her right).

"War, huh? Plays havoc with your nails. Mine are just totally crappy. And I can't remember the last time I managed to get hold of a new razor for my legs..."

The scientist was now looking at Jyn as though she had gone completely mad – which, Cassian reflected, wasn't too far off as a starting hypothesis. He frowned. Was The Writer at it again? Some sort of totally out-of-character moment? Then he heard the soft whine of servomotors from behind him..

"Is Jyn Erso attempting to use female solidarity to gain intelligence on the whereabouts of Professor Furter?" Kay Tu appeared next to his shoulder.

"Looks like," the captain answered laconically.

"I am not convinced that Jyn Erso is the right female to attempt this. In fact, I would say she is definitely the wrong female to attempt this. I estimate the chances of success at very low indeed."

"Low to non-existent. And I'm also pretty sure that she's picked entirely the wrong female to use this tactic on. Do you think you could tell Jyn that she needs to check the hyperspace calculations with you, in the cockpit?"

"I can assure you there is no need to check the calculations. They are correct to the twenty-seventh significant figure..."

"Okay, let me rephrase that – Jyn needs to be in the cockpit, and if checking the calculations gets her there..."

"Ah, I see." Kay Tu stomped over to where Jyn sat.

"Cassian says you are to come and check my hyperspace calculations even though they are correct. Please accompany me."

Jyn rolled her eyes, and shot daggers at Cassian, before grudgingly following Kay to the cockpit. Cassian took her place next to the scientist. The scientist gave a frown of annoyance.

"Can't you just leave me alone? What approach are you going to try to take? Talk about my nails? Bat your pretty-boy long lashes at me? Or are you bad cop?"

"Yeah, sorry about that. She is a bit transparent. And unobservant – you don't strike me as the nail bar type. Though you do keep your right nails looked after – gwevrah?"

"So you are the observant type! Do you play?"

"Me? No. Can't carry a tune in a bucket. Like listening though. And I'm more into futebol than smashball, so not much opportunity to build up a rapport there either. So, basically, my interrogation technique's doomed before it starts."

The scientist looked at him. "Yeah, that'll be right… Why is the word coming to my mind right now 'disingenuous'?"

"So what should I try?" Cassian asked.

"Interrogation 101 – the three techniques for turning agents are money, ideology, and threat."

"Hmm, no family or loved ones around here for me to threaten, no knowledge of your sexual kinks to threaten blackmail..." Cassian paused and gave her a sidelong glance. "Do you secretly hate the Empire?"

"Not fussed one way or the other. A job's a job. But cold hard cash will do it every time."

Cassian nodded. "That can be arranged. Untraceable electronic credits laundered through a bank on the outer rim? So where is Professor Furter?"

"A secret cross-over facility in the SG1 sector."

"SG1?" Cassian frowned.

"Used to be that you could only access the hyperspace coordinates by signing up for a three year contract with an internet provider secured against the life of your first born child. But these days, the location is available on free-to-view." The scientist thrust a memory stick towards Cassian.

"Thanks." He turned towards the door to the head and yelled "Bodhi, pull your pants up and get your arse out here. I need you to do some flying."

6.626068E-34

About 16 standard hours later, the ship dropped out of hyperspace. Bodhi brought the craft down through a swirling atmosphere of pink clouds, lit from below by the light of one of the twin suns sinking below the horizon. In other circumstances it could have been pretty.

The scientist, buoyed by the promise of untraceable credits, had been remarkably cooperative. And fortunately financially gullible enough not to ask for cash up front. (Jyn suspected The Writer might have been guilty of failing to fill in a plot hole properly). She had explained that the city they were headed for was home to one of the largest universities in this sector of the quadrant. Conveniently, it was the summer break, so only post grads and researchers would be around, and, even more conveniently, this weekend happened to be an "open weekend" when prospective students could come and have a look around and decide whether to part with several billion credits worth of their parents' hard-earned money in exchange for a degree which would either qualify them to build weapons for the Empire or flip burgers in any space port in the galaxy, depending on the subject chosen.

The scientist had looked at them, Cassian first, then Jyn, then Bodhi. "You might pass muster as a suitably cynical mature student, jaded by experience. You're the goth girl who's too cool for school, but whose parents are insisting you come and have a look anyway. You're the really keen would-be electronic engineering student." She looked at Chirrut and Baze. "You're… you're staying in the ship."

"You have shattered my dreams. I was hoping to major in fine art, specialising in painting and drawing," muttered Chirrut.

"Don't worry," Jyn said, "We'll come back and get you as soon as we've located Professor Furter. We need all the backup we can get."

The scientist gave them a moment to grab some gear, then shepherded them down the landing ramp. At the bottom, Cassian gave a tug at the handle of his suitcase, and a natty little handle extended. He started to tow it on its built-in hover-wheels. Jyn looked at him, a mixture of surprise and horror on her face.

"That's the sort of case hyperspace flight attendants use… A space-hostess case? You have a space-hostess case? What the hell is in it? You only have one pair of pants. Elasticated pants at that..."

"But a jacket for every climate and emotional mood."

Jyn nodded, accepting the truth of this. There was the leather jacket that hinted that you didn't know whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. The rain-slicked sniper camo jacket. The flight jacket cut high round the waist to give an extra good view of his low-slung blaster belt and sexy ass. And last, but by no means least, the cute fluffy blue parka, hinting at a redeemable heart within.

They headed through the space-port terminal, Cassian towing his hostess case. At the exit, the scientist haggled a group discount in a shared ride to the university dorm. Within an hour or so, the foursome had their rooms organised (tiny little boxes just big enough to accommodate a narrow bed each), then went out to hit the local bar. Jyn got ID-ed, but her fake papers passed muster.

It was about five beers in that Jyn noticed the way Cassian was looking at her. It was a burning, intense gaze from those deep brown eyes that made her skin tingle. Somewhere, in some small corner of her brain, she registered the fact that The Writer was probably manipulating the situation, but frankly, five beers in, and with Cassian looking at her like that, she no longer gave a kriff.

6.626068E-34

 _Author's note:_

 _I must confess I stole the "jacket for every occasion" joke from a tumblr post Sian22 sent me. It was a gem with such delights as "the jacket of moral ambiguity, ideal for stabbing your informant in a ruthless manner..."_ _Anyway, looks like The Writer may be about to have her evil way with the characters... So what do we reckon? Too early in the plot for hot sex? Or should they leap into the sack? (I have already decided upon a course of action, but would be fascinated to see a vote on the matter...)_


	16. Beware the Ides of March

_Author's note – numbers four and five of my little AUs are for GuineaPiggie. As she said to me, there's something about Jyn and Cassian that lends itself to the AU fic like no other ship – where the AUs cover the sublimely good, the bad and the ugly. I especially like the ones where the author has done no research at all and incorporates what might best be described as "alternative facts."_

 _The hot sex is on its way - soon, I promise, soon..._

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Jyn woke up in the narrow bed, alone and disappointingly unsullied. She had, she realised, passed out after the scientist had helped Cassian carry her back to her room. Moving cautiously so as not to disturb her killer headache, she got up. A blisteringly hot shower helped a bit, a large mug of kaf in the dormitory canteen helped a lot, and the scientist led Jyn, Cassian and Bodhi to Professor Furter's lab.

Signalling to them to be quiet, she let herself into a small office with a large rack of computers, and fiddled briefly with the keyboard.

"That should do the trick..."

The door to a larger room swung open, and two more scientists in lab coats exited.

"Bloody server's gone down again. Fancy a kaf?"

"Might as well..."

The two figures disappeared down the corridor and into the elevator at the end. The scientist led them into the lab.

There, in the centre of a high room, stood a circular frame, maybe four or five metres in diameter, with a shimmering blue and silver haze filling the empty hole at its centre.

"What the hell is that?" Bodhi said, in an awed voice..

"A cross-over AU-gate. I can manipulate the settings to change your destination, and it will take you to the alternative universe of my choosing."

"So which one is the professor in?" asked Jyn.

"That's the catch – I have no way of knowing. You just have to keep trying them till we hit lucky." The scientist sounded embarrassed to have admitted to a gap in her knowledge.

"So, you're telling us we have to go through the portal till we hit on the alternate universe Professor Crafe is hiding out in," Cassian said. He sounded even more irritable than normal.

"That's right," the scientist answered.

"Oh Kriff," said Jyn. "This could go wrong in so many ways.

Cassian gave her a brooding look of agreement. He turned back to their informant.

"So, how will we know how to fit in?"

"It seems as if you naturally fall into your new persona when you arrive in the new universe. You should still be you – in terms of character traits – but with your backstory filled in."

"A bit like a cover identity when you're on a mission – fine so long as you've read and memorised the briefing notes," Cassian said, seeking confirmation.

"Precisely, only without the need to memorise anything."

"And appearance?" asked Jyn. "Won't we stand out a bit in the native culture, dressed as we are?"

"Indications are that clothing miraculously changes on passage through the portal," the lab scientist said, helpfully.

"Is this all seeming a bit far fetched?" asked Bodhi.

There was a chorus in answer. "Yes, it's The Writer. Again. She doesn't do plausibility."

Cassian moved to Jyn's side, and wrapped a reassuring hand round her elbow. "Let's try, at least."

Jyn nodded, that characteristic raise of her chin. Cassian didn't exactly smile, but she saw a slight crinkling of the lines at the corners of his eyes that told her he was on her side. Taking a deep breath, they stepped through the flickering blue haze.

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The first thing that struck Cassian was the change in Jyn's clothing. He'd never seen anything like it – but he approved. She wore a pale shirt of some silky material, in a shade of green that brought out the colour of her eyes, and clung to the swell of her breasts. Her lips were slicked with a siren-red colour. Her cargo pants had been replaced by a skirt. A dark blue with fine grey lines, tight, to the knee, emphasising the curve of her hips. Below, her legs were covered in – not exactly leggings – a kind of semi-transparent black clinging, sheer fabric. With a thin seam up the back. She staggered slightly, which he guessed was down to the new footwear – shiny black shoes that forced her up onto her tiptoes, the weight of her heels carried by what looked almost like shining knife blades. They were the most absurd item of footwear he'd ever seen. They also made her legs look ten centimetres longer, and pushed her ass out at a pert angle. _Kriff!_ Cassian had to admit that even though Jyn looked like she was about to explode with annoyance, it had to be one of the force-damn sexiest things he'd ever seen.

He searched his mind for biographical details. He was Captain Cassian Andor, hero of the Portuguese Civil War. He'd been at Guernica. The year was 1942, and Nazi tanks had swept through Montenegro and Poland on their way to Pearl Harbour, starting World War II. _Jane_ Erso was the beautiful English spy from the charming home counties town of Glasgow, somewhere in Surrey, just north of London, who had been parachuted in to help him.

From some hidden recess of his mind, a voice chipped in with _For kriff's sake, do some force-damn research, will you? Even if it's only kriffin' wikipedia..._

6.626068E-34

Their second foray into an alternate universe was equally strange. Jyn looked down at her own clothes – faded blue pants in some sort of coarse material, with metal rivets at the corners of the pockets. A tie-dyed shirt. She put her hand to her head – a bandana. Round her neck a funny medallion – a vertical line bisecting a circle, with two further lines from the centre running diagonally downwards at 45 degrees. Cassian was wearing a tailored pair of pants and jacket, with a white shirt beneath and a knotted strip of cloth at the neck. The cloth looked faintly irridescent and expensive. On his feet, a pair of shiny brown leather shoes with a pattern of dots tooled into them.

She mentally reviewed their latest AU backstory. It was the 70s. She was an undercover narcotics officer, notorious for playing fast and loose with the rule-book. He was the uptight federal agent who was her mis-matched partner. And he was pissed. He was always pissed. (In the Corellian sense of angry, not the Alderaanian sense of had drunk too much force-damn Corellian brandy). Anyhow, pissed, usually with her.

Today was no exception.

"You realise the whole case could be thrown out on a technicality," he hissed. "You forgot to read the suspect their Matilda rights."

6.626068E-34

The third trip brought them out somewhere that looked a bit like a cantina. But not the sort smoky, grimy, down-at-heel dives they normally found themselves in. This one was clean and airy, with windows – and it was daytime outside. It smelled of kaf, and a sort of sugary scent as well.

There was a counter along one side, with shelves containing jars of dark beans, all neatly labelled, and cups and mugs, neatly graded by size. In the midst of the shelves, taking pride of place, stood a huge, glinting metallic machine belching steam from metal tubes. The counter held trays of cakes covered by transparent domes.

"Erso, you're late for your shift," said a voice. A man stood up from where he'd been crouching, stashing dirty dishes somewhere under the counter. He looked slightly irascible, but basically good natured. He was dressed in a red and black checked shirt and tan coloured pants, and sported a bushy beard and horn-rimmed glasses.

Jyn made apologetic noises, and hustled behind the counter. _I'm a barrista in this universe_. The back story unfolded as if by magic in her brain, but it was just words. The words, unfortunately, made precious little sense. _Fuck knows what a barrista is…_

"Your usual, Cass?" asked the man. He took one of the smallest cups, and placed it on the shining machine, before grinding some of the beans, tamping them down into a small container and snapping it into place above the cup. Dark liquid trickled into the cup. The man's eyes twinkled as he added, "Sure you don't want to try a skinny mochaccino grande with a shot of blueberry syrup, whipped cream, and extra marshmallows on top?"

Cassian didn't have to consult his mental back story in order to turn down this monstrosity, giving a shudder as he did so.

6.626068E-34

Venture number four was a busted flush from the moment Jyn found herself snuggled against Cassian on the IKEA sofa in their rented utility, and saw the copy of _What to Expect_ on the coffee table in front of them. (A coffee table? Just how badly out-of-character was The Writer prepared to go?)

She cradled her rounded belly affectionately. Because of her tiny frame, she was showing already, despite only being four weeks. (Rounded? Four weeks? She couldn't help remembering the section on "pregnancy and childbirth" in the field medicine guide she'd carried around with her when she found herself designated impromptu medic in Saw's outfit. The uterus didn't make it out of the pelvic girdle till twelve weeks!)

Cassian stared mistily at the envelope in his hands. "Guess we'd better take this to the cake-maker and start planning the gender reveal party," he said, in a dreamy voice.

(At four weeks? The sonographer wouldn't even have been able to see a heartbeat, much less a bloomin' dick! And a gender reveal party? What bantha crap was this?)

Then Jyn spotted the post-it notes sticking out of _What to Expect. Kriff! It was the author's own copy._ Gingerly she picked it up, and started looking at what The Writer had planned. Hyperemesis gravidarum… pubic-symphis disorder… gestational diabetes… failed instrumental delivery (high section forceps) followed by crash C section while Cassian paced up and down outside thinking she was going to die… third degree tear… haemorrhage… retained placenta… infection… post-partum psychosis. Oh holy hells of Hoth! The Writer was planning the worst pregnancy ever. Everything that could go wrong – could conceivably go wrong – was going to go wrong, and all in a single pregnancy.

Why the hell was it that fictional pregnancies had to go to one extreme or the other? Either our plucky heroine glowed all the way through and turned into a rampant sex goddess, before giving birth in a mother-earth-goddess glow of self satisfied smugness, or she ended up on the brink of death, clutching the brass bedstead and screaming her head off. No half measures, no medium ground. What happened to a moderately uncomfortable and irritating nine months, with a spot of morning sickness, a bit of acid reflux and the odd twinge of round ligament pain? Followed by an average-ish birth with all the pain relief ultra-modern futuristic medicine could supply?

Jyn shook her head in disbelief. Where the kriff had she left that mifepristone?

6.626068E-34

Number five got really surreal. Jyn found herself standing on a large wooden platform, a line of bright lights at floor levels shining in her eyes, gloom beyond, but somehow the sense of a large space in the distance. She was dressed in a filmy, diaphanous gown of a golden silk that clung to her every curve, and wearing an elaborate wig of dark braids with golden beads. She could feel the mask like coating of heavy makeup round her eyes.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she realised that the space was in fact a huge auditorium filled with people, an expectant near silence hanging heavy about her. They were all watching her.

Suddenly from beneath the line of lights music filled the whole space – string instruments in a jaunty melody. Jyn was filled with an instinctive knowledge of what to do. She breathed in deeply through her nose, filling her lungs, then, almost effortlessly, filled the vast hall with song.

Tu la mia stella sei,

amabile speranza,

e porgi ai desir' miei

un grato e bel piacer.

 _What the hell language is that? It sounds a bit like Festian, but not exactly…_ Jyn's confusion was fleeting, overwhelmed by an amazing sense of power. The power of being in front of an audience and knowing they were hers for the taking. She was a performer at the height of her artistry, years of technical mastery combining with an instinctive musicianship. And over it all, a layer of emotional engagement with her craft… the audience was in the palm of her hand. Her coloratura was perfect, adding ornament to the lilting dance-like tune beneath, yet at the same time she could engage with the entranced watchers, making them feel her giddy burgeoning love for the powerful hero who had strode into her life, yet also making them laugh at her flightiness, but never letting them forget she was a queen, Queen Cleopatra, the most powerful, ruthless, beautiful woman in the known world.

A final triumphant phrase delivered with panache, she left the stage in triumph as the applause roared around the building. In the wings, she found herself face to face with Cassian. _Holy kriffin' force, he looked gorgeous!_ He was wearing a shining armour breast plate, a flowing crimson cloak cast casually round his shoulders, tightly tailored military trousers, and _(holy frozen hells of Hoth)_ black polished leather boots to the knee. Jyn felt her mouth go dry. God, those boots. She could imagine pushing him back into the plush throne in the centre of the stage and straddling him while he still wore those boots.

Cassian gave her a dazzling smile and mouthed "you slayed them, querida," then strode onto the stage. Oh force! It was his "murder strut." She melted every time she saw him walk like that. He threw himself casually onto the throne – that throne – as the rest of the cast streamed on from the wings, soldiers and a figure in flowing robes. The music started once more, with strings joined by brassy military trumpets and horns. The figure in flowing robes started his recitative, a questioning phrase immediately answered by Cassian's silkily smooth vocal line.

Answered at least an octave higher than Jyn was expecting. _What the kriffin' hell? Oh no, it couldn't possibly be. No, NO, NO, NO, NO!_ In this AU, Cassian was a castrato.


	17. All roight, moi lover?

The rest of the afternoon proceeded in much the same vein, with a multiplicity of strange and implausible universes interspersed with brief conversations as to what to do next.

There was the strange rural universe. Jyn Grundy was the daughter of an old farming family who had worked the land for generation upon generation as farm hands (generations of inbreeding had ensured that the lack of IQ left them unable to make the jump from farm hand to tenant farmer). She found herself at the county show, lurking among the combine harvesters and lusting after the area's new veterinary surgeon, the dashing young Spaniard Cassian Andor. However, to her horror, when she attempted to make conversation with him, the words that came out of her mouth made no sense at all.

"Arr, Oi'm so glad you've come to Ambridge, Mr. Andor. Oi'll pop round your surgery in the morning to drop off these 'ere ministry leaflets on growing roight big turnips."

 _What the kriff? Worst chat-up line ever!_ Things went from bad to worse when her fictional father appeared. Jyn swallowed hard, feeling an internal well of trauma gush forth like a severed artery, or bad mixed metaphor, or both. However, unaware of his daughter's reaction, and without batting an eyelid, Galen Grundy addressed the new vet.

"All roight, moi lover?"

6.626068E-34

They tumbled back through the AU-gate. Cassian's eyes had a thousand yard stare and his chest was heaving. He gulped and explained that it was not so much the prospect of impending slash which had freaked him out (Jyn felt a sudden stab of jealousy with uncomfortably incestuous overtones), but more the mud-splattered corduroy Galen had been wearing.

At the same time, Jyn was uncomfortably aware of how attractive Cassian's big brown eyes were when wide with horror, and the way the sinews in his forearms rippled beneath his warm, coffee coloured skin as he ran a hand (with its long, promising fingers) through his shaggy dark hair as if trying to rub the memories away.

He gave his head a tiny shake then raised it look at her, giving her a smouldering glance from eyes half-hooded by long dark lashes, his mouth set in a thin determined line.

"Let's try again."

6.626068E-34

The next sortie involved roller derby. That one was very short. Jyn was puzzled by the total lack of detail until Cassian explained that The Writer was probably filling a reader request, but unfortunately knew nothing whatsoever about roller derby so couldn't actually flesh out the plot bunny at all.

(Cassian also explained that they'd got off lightly, as reader requests more often than not involved particularly weird kinks which authors then wrote with very little conviction. He concluded from the lack of the aforementioned weird kinks that there was a high probability that The Writer was middle aged. Jyn asked how he'd reached this conclusion, and he muttered something incomprehensible about circus acts, or tumblers or something, and how The Writer clearly wasn't one, as evidenced by the absence of outré kinks. This of course set Jyn's mind in one, and only one, direction. Kinks. Lots of kinks. With Cassian. Bum sex? Tame by today's standards. Spanking? Too last season. Tight corsets, thigh boots and riding crops? No, she'd leave that one to right-wing Imperial politicians. Engaging in sexual congress while swinging from the chandelier? She didn't entirely trust the ceiling plaster. Smearing chocolate all over him and licking it off? Now, that was more like it. Him eating a Mars Bar from her… no, that was so last-fifty-years or so, and besides which they didn't have Mars Bars in their universe.)

But it turned out The Writer did have some peculiar foibles, just (disappointingly), not sexual ones. The roller derby AU was followed by a cricket AU, about which, unfortunately, it appeared The Writer did know. Know a great deal. Detail upon tedious detail was piled up – maiden overs, bouncers, yorkers, fielding at silly mid off, pigeons at square leg, cakes sent in by Mrs Trellis for the delectation of the team in the commentary box, seam bowling, sticky wickets, hooking off the back foot (for a moment Jyn wondered that The Writer might have a kink for imagining herself – and by extension, Jyn – as a sex worker, before realising that it involved some sort of complicated step-back-and-swipe-at-the-ball manoeuvre). And, worse still, there were cucumber sandwiches. Cut into triangles.

6.626068E-34

They stumbled out of the AU-gate feeling slightly sick. Not so sick that Jyn couldn't recall the one positive side to the cricket AU: Cassian looked unbelievably attractive in cricket whites. And (who would have guessed) the fabric was quite thin and clinging. She'd got a fabulously nice view of his muscular thighs and toned ass as he bowled. No, vile sandwiches and boredom aside, that AU had had its moments.

6.626068E-34

The next one was, sadly, not so good. It featured Jyn the single parent. This did not go well for Jyn, because (in a triumph of authorial experience over hope) it turned out to be a realistic single parent story. She was exhausted, 20lbs overweight due to complete lack of time to do any exercise, and had lost her libido down the back of the sofa somewhere during the toddler years. When Cassian finally appeared in the plot, his eyes passed over her as if she wasn't there, then he scanned the rest of the room looking for someone attractive and without baggage.

Jyn tumbled back onto the floor of the lab and looked over at Cassian with new eyes. So far she'd taken those long, lingering glances from liquid chocolate eys for granted. But now she'd been shown the icy reaches of a universe where he didn't look at her as though she was the still centre round which all the matter revolved. She didn't like it at all. As he screwed up his face with near exhaustion and rubbed tired eyes, she hastily unpopped the top button on her shirt and, as he opened his eyes again, thrust out her chest hopefully. For all his impassive spy demeanour, she could have sworn his tongue flickered out and licked his lips just for an instant, before he gestured towards the gate.

"Just one more time, querida…"

6.626068E-34

This time they found themselves in a classic arranged marriage plot-line. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been set in a plausible universe – something historical where women were bought and sold like chattels. But no… this appeared to be set in their own universe, and Mon Mothma no less threw feminist credentials to the wind and bullied Jyn Erso into it to gain a hold over her father (who apparently was still alive and working in another quadrant of the galaxy; Jyn was beginning to get emotional whiplash from the constant "he's alive"… "no, he's dead"… "no he's alive" switches). Cassian was unaccountably cold and distant, until the inevitable plot twist in which it transpired that he had lost his first wife (possibly in a tragic combine harvester incident… or perhaps, Jyn thought, she was merely suffering from AU-fatigue and starting to get all her AUs mixed up).

6.626068E-34

"Crap, we're not getting anywhere." Bodhi sounded frustrated. Jyn looked round. She'd almost forgotten he and the scientist were there. He continued, "I think what we need at this point is for me to take the scientist off to fetch Baze and Chirrut and Kay Tu."

"Why?" asked Jyn.

Bodhi stared to tick reasons off on his fingers. "One. If we get Baze and Chirrut and Kay Tu, The Writer might remember that she promised us a plot. Two. I'm not sure I can stand much more of this unresolved sexual tension. And three. Depending on how The Writer feels about me..." He took a sidelong glance at the scientist, who (now Jyn bothered to look) was actually not bad looking. "I might finally get laid."

"Careful, Bodhi. She might well be another self-insert." Cassian frowned with concern.

"So? It's been a long, dry patch, okay?"

Bodhi gestured to the scientist and she led him to the door. She held it open for him, and as he went through, patted his arse. Cassian turned to Jyn. She watched his adam's apple bob as he swallowed, hard. Then he took a purposeful stride towards her.

6.626068E-34

 _Author's note: Sorry for the epically long delay in posting. But the next chapter is written._

 _So, Cassian was wrong about the hint of slash. "Moi lover" is an all-purpose, gender neutral, platonic greeting in the west country. Hell, my 60-something neighbour calls me "moi lover". It does make me wince a bit, but I know he doesn't mean anything by it. Kind of like my early days living in west Yorkshire, the first time I saw a15 stone male brickie (that's 200lb to American readers... sorry to the rest of the world, too late at night to divide by 2.2... 90 kg- ish?) hand over his bus money to a 15 stone male bus driver with the words "there you go love". Everyone calls everyone else "love" up there. Anyway, apologies for the Anglo-centric tone of this, but I thought we ought to pay homage to Felicity Jones' first big break as an actor, as Stella Grundy in "The Archers." (Rum tee tum tee tum tee tum, rum tee tum tee ti-doh, rum tee tum tee tum tee tum, rum tee tiddly pom... which will make perfect sense if you are British and no sense at all if you are from anywhere else). Also sorry for the radio 4 cricket commentary... (and for stealing Mrs Trellis of North Wales from her original home on "I'm sorry I haven't a clue")._

 _Anyway, the next chapter will be unveiled soon... the morning after the night before..._


	18. Gettin' jiggy wit it

Jyn and Cassian sat in the college refectory toying with breakfast and trying to avoid looking at one another.

Jyn had never liked that awkward "moment after the night before" feeling. But here she was, suffering from it amped up to number 11 on the hyperspace drive. This was even worse than those embarrassing moments where she'd shagged a fellow gang member because she had an itch to scratch, or was keyed up after a mission, or just wanted some mindless distraction. This wasn't just a cold-light-of-day tell-me-I-didn't, not-with-you-of-all-people-force-dammit feeling. Well, it was partly that. (Though not in a "kriff, how many had I had to make you seem attractive?" sort of way. More in a "bantha shit, this makes things really complicated" sort of way.)

No, it was the nature of the sex they'd had.

Kriff! That made it sound really kinky. And it hadn't been. Pretty vanilla really. But... kind of formulaic. Jyn gave a start at the odd choice of word her subconscious had supplied.

She took a sidelong look at Cassian. He was bent over his mug of kaf looking every bit as uncomfortable as she felt. Could he remember last night as vividly and awkwardly as she did? Her mind started to rerun events, like a recording she couldn't find the off switch for. It was like watching the opening crawl of script on a really dated holovid. (Man, she'd loved those holovids as a kid. Hell, truth be known, she still did.) Blocks of text scrolled past.

Opening paragraph – him peeling off her singlet and staring in open eyed wonder at her. Next two paragraphs licking her right nipple. A couple of sentences suckling the left one so it didn't feel left out. Surely sex wasn't meant to be this calculatedly symmetrical. Her breast had pebbled beneath his touch, apparently. Why this unlikely anatomical achievement hadn't left her sprinting for an emergency mammogram she was unsure, but her memory assured her that at the time she'd liked it. Liked it enough to sigh his name in a husky voice.

Things had progressed along a well worn track from there. Fiery kisses down her stomach. Sucking on her clit while he put first one, then two, then three fingers inside her. At this point, or so her memory informed her, she had "fisted her hands in his hair" at this point. (She could only thank the goddess that whoever had written the holovid's opening crawl hadn't known what fisting actually meant in a sex scene.) She had come, dramatically screaming his name. (What the kriff? She never screamed. She was more of a grunter. Or so she'd been told.)

Then, as the waves subsided, he had slid up her body and thrust his thick length within her, immediately hitting a spot that had her body "soaring through hyperspace again" while his fingers circled her soaking wet clit. (Again, what was that about? A girl needed a bit of recovery time. Well, this one did, anyway. One of her rare longish-term lovers had affectionately nick-named her the "one-come wonder".)

Then Cassian had apparently done the whole soaring through hyperspace thing too. He had growled her name from somewhere deep at the back of his throat as he came, before they fell asleep spooning.

In retrospect, the strangest thing was that despite the whole "screaming his name" bit, the sex had seemed a bit clinical. What was the word Kay had used? "Copulation." Yes, if ever an encounter had deserved to be described as copulation, this was it. Her memories of the whole episode, barring a few rather over-blown metaphors, had reminded her of the instructions for field-stripping, cleaning and rebuilding a blaster. "Remove cover A, carefully wipe surface B, insert tab C into slot D before twisting and making sure nub E clicks into place."

It also reminded her why her preferred form of sexual congress was a quick shag with a random stranger picked up in a bar, one she'd never see again. Followed by tiptoeing out of his room, boots in hand, in the small hours of the morning.

Then another thought hit her… embedded in the wretched set of memories from last night was that of Cassian promising to be gentle after she'd shyly (shy? what?) confessed that she was a virgin. A virgin? A kriffin' virgin? After her life? Virgin on the kriffin' impossible more like.

She risked another glance at Cassian. He'd put the mug down, and was staring at her. As she met his eyes, she saw his adam's apple bob nervously. Nervous? Cassian? He gave a slight cough as though clearing his throat.

"So, last night..."

"Yeah, erm… last night… yeah. We could just forget about it."

Silence. Several minutes of silence.

"Uh… it was a bit weird." Hand running rapidly through his hair, almost a nervous tick. "I mean, not you obviously. You weren't weird… You were… nice." Kriff. Was he blushing? Captain Cassian Andor, blushing? "I mean the situation. It was… weird."

She decided to ignore the blush. "Yeah, weird, that sort of sums it up." She paused. "Kind of impersonal, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, it does. Impersonal." He rolled the word around, as if testing it out. Then added, "And at the same time, kind of too perfect."

Jyn nodded. Wondered whether to risk it. Talking, that was. Talking was sometimes more dangerous than sex. Usually more dangerous. What the hell. They needed to get past this, and maybe talking would be better. Hesitantly, she offered her opening gambit. "Like, where was the moment where we both tipped our heads the same way, and almost headbutted each other in the nose?"

There was a tiny quirk at the corner of Cassian's mouth. The closest he ever came to smiling, she suddenly realised. Except for last night. Last night he'd grinned from ear to ear, seemed really carefree. Seemed like he wasn't him. She almost sighed with relief at the return of the tiny quirk. Much more him.

"That romantic almost-broke-your-nose-there, sorry, moment!"

Jyn felt her lips turn up into a small, tight, smile. Encouraged, Cassian continued.

"There was no 'dammit, I didn't take my boots off first' moment. No hopping around with my pants round my knees wondering why I could never be smooth."

"You were pretty smooth all the way through. Smooth and..."

"Impersonal. Sorry."

"I mean, it was good. Very good." Jyn didn't know why she felt like she needed to reassure him.

"Too good. I mean, all that growling your name as I came stuff. Not really my style."

"Not mine either."

Cassian paused again. Jyn had a feeling she knew where he was going. Was worried to say it, because it was so deeply uncomfortable. "So, do you think it was… The Writer?"

Now Jyn felt herself pause. The ramifications, if she said yes. But she couldn't lie either. "Yes, it was scripted."

Cassian let his head drop onto the table in front of him. "Kriff. I'm sorry."

Jyn took a deep breath. Sex was fine – it was getting emotionally naked she'd always struggled with. But sometimes it had to be done. "Cassian..." He looked up sharply. She almost never called him by name, well, except maybe mid fire-fight to attract his attention. Now it was Jyn's turn to swallow. "It's just… You should know… The thought has crossed my mind… That I'd like to… With you. Maybe not like last night, but it's not like I was unwilling or anything like that." The last words came out in a bit of a rush. Bantha shit! That was a whole place she didn't want to be forced into going. But she had to. Couldn't leave him thinking… But now he knew stuff – stuff that might screw up their friendship. Or comradeship. Or whatever it was.

Cassian looked at her steadily. She wondered if she could sense a similar internal struggle going on for him, or whether she was just projecting her turmoil onto him. Then his mouth quirked again, a little. "Me too." He added, "But a regular, normal shag."

"Quickie in the store cupboard."

"Losing my balance with my pants round my knees."

"Me realising I haven't shaved in months."

"S'alright – I like real women. Not smooth plastic dolls."

"Even if they do a vaj fart when you pull out?"

"Specially then. I just let rip myself." He looked straight at her, and she could see from the twitch at the corner of his mouth that he was struggling to keep a straight face. "An embarrassment shared is an embarrassment halved."

"A true gentleman." Jyn started to laugh, laugh like she hadn't done in ages. She sneaked a look at his face. He'd gone back to staring at the opposite wall, but she could tell he was aware of her.

"I try, _querida_ , I try."

"So, we good?"

He nodded, giving a tiny sideways glance. "Good."

"Good."


	19. Dreaming Spires

_Sorry, this chapter is unashamedly Anglo-centric. But there's more to us than just making really good baddies. Parts of it may also be a bit flaky as I am on the train back from a far-flung work meeting. I've written up my notes arising from the meeting and am now demolishing a little miniature bottle of distinctly indifferent plonk of the sort available from station buffets. And watching those bits of the English countryside which appear not so much to have happened as to have been designed by the English Tourist Board expressly to look very cute and archetypically English to visitors. (I am in fact not far from Archers country. There are cows and quite possibly mangle-wurzels. And chalk horses on hillsides and meandering rivers. And hedgerows. Lots of hedgerows.)_

Jyn and Cassian didn't have to endure awkward solitude (or two-some-tude) for long: Bodhi and the scientist reappeared, bringing with them Baze and Chirrut (but not Kay Tu – he was still guarding the pilot). Bodhi looked considerably less twitchy and more relaxed than Jyn had ever seen him – she concluded that presumably he and the scientist had indeed engaged in a bit of stress relief.

"Perhaps that means The Writer will focus on giving Bodhi some hot sex for once in his life and leave us alone," whispered Cassian.

"Can but hope," Jyn replied.

"So," said Baze, "Bodhi's given us a sit-rep. You guys can't just keep on exploring AUs at random. You need a plan."

"I suggested communing with the Force for intuition," said Chirrut.

"And I think, realistically, we need to find the lab techs, beat the shit out of them and get them to tell us which universe Dr. Furter's gone into..." said Baze.

In the end, neither of the above methods was needed; the scientist found Furter's lab notebooks and set the gate coordinates accordingly. Moments later, the Rogue One team tumbled through the AU-gate into yet another unknown universe.

6.626068E-34

"This is the weirdest planet I've ever seen," said Baze, cradling his energy rifle across his chest. He stood a couple of metres from the point where the gate could be seen glimmering, half-hidden between some willow trees. His feet were firmly planted on a gravel path as he surveyed the scene before him.

Tall buildings in a mellow cream stone, with elaborate carvings and spires, fringed the green meadow in which they found themselves. The sun beat down – warm, but not oppressive. This planet seemed to have a mild and temperate climate. Bees buzzed in flowers, butterflies flitted from light to shade beneath the trees lining an avenue, a deep blue sky arced over head.

"What the hell has The Writer done to us now?" asked Cassian. He turned to see Bodhi and Jyn exchange shocked glances. He could see recognition flicker across their faces. "Well?"

"It's a college AU," said Bodhi, sounding even more shaken than normal.

Chirrut gave one of his enigmatic smiles. "Ah. Frat boys. Keg parties. Working your way through college as a barrista. Krennic will turn out to be alive, as Dean. And Cassian here is bound to be the quarterback of the college football team. Started out as the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Latino, gets loads of racist shit, doesn't fit in socially, working his way through college on a scholarship." He spoke with the confidence of someone who is one with the force, who can see the future mapped out.

"Not exactly," said Jyn. She pointed up the tree-lined avenue to the building at the end. Tall windows with pointed arches clustered beneath a steep pitched roof with gables. An archway lead to a quiet oasis of green lawns beyond, cradled by stone walls in more of that soft, homely yellow. She gesticulated vaguely to the left of the archway. "Those were your rooms, weren't they, Bodhi? In second year."

Cassian turned to her in shock. "You were here?"

"Well, not here precisely. Not as posh as Bodhi. No, my college was a few…" She hesitated before committing to the slightly alien dialect, so different from her own. "Blocks, as you might say, north of here. But yes, this is what I think you would call our _alma mater._ So, no quarterbacks, no frat houses. More the gentle splash of blades in the water as the eights go upstream, or the thwack of leather on willow in the University Parks."

Bodhi interrupted this moment of nostalgia. "Hey, I wasn't posh. Just got a scholarship to a good school."

"You mean Krennic isn't the dean?" Chirrut sounded disappointed. Baze laid a surprisingly gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You can't always be right, my friend."

Suddenly, a group of beings lurched out from beneath the archway. From the noise – a curious braying, honking sound – one might have supposed they were aliens, but they appeared to be men. Wearing curious clothes – black pants and jackets with lapels and flaps of fabric at the back long enough to cover their butts, curious silky strips of fabric round their waists, gleaming white shirts… white bows at their necks. On the far left was a self-satisfied dark haired man with floppy hair, next to him an unctuous looking young man, also with dark hair, albeit cut somewhat shorter, and an upturned, slightly porcine nose. On the right of the group was a slightly plump, buffoonish man with a mop of wild blond hair, with a skinny, weaselly-faced bespectacled man clinging to his arm. Then Cassian realised in horror that man in the centre of the group was someone he recognised. Someone he thought he'd shot… Dead. Beside him he felt Jyn tense.

"Krennic… in the Bullingdon Club. That figures," she muttered.

Suddenly, the normally twitchy, combat-averse Bodhi snatched the energy rifle from the hands of a very surprised Baze Malbus.

"You bastards… you threw my bicycle in Mercury back when I was a first year." He fired a shot wildly down the avenue. It took out an overhanging branch, which plummeted to the ground near the braying men, raising a shower of gravel.

"Mercury?" asked Cassian, eyebrows slightly raised.

Jyn shrugged. "The fountain. In Tom Quad."

Cassian didn't find this answer particularly informative. In fact, if Jyn had been one of his informants, he'd have been reaching for his vibroblade at this point. Meanwhile at the other end of the avenue, the group of men in dinner jackets scattered. Krennic dropped what looked curiously like a pig's head.

"Always thought he was a dirty fucking pervert," muttered Jyn.

6.626068E-34

 _I'd just like to point out (in the interests of avoiding a libel action) that while certain portions of the Galactic press claimed Krennic had allegedly had sexual relations with a pig's head, this was almost certainly untrue._

 _Bonus points to anyone au fait with British politics who can identify all of Krennic's companions. They were indeed my near contemporaries at university but suffice to say we moved in rather different social circles. In fact, make that very, very different social circles._


	20. Writer's Block

"Has it occurred to you that we've been stuck in this crappy B&B somewhere off the Cowley Road in a weird campus AU for a remarkably long time?"

Jyn looked across at Cassian. He had that intent look he got when thinking through how the plot was likely to fit together. That pair of vertical lines had appeared between his eyebrows again, his eyes narrowed slightly. He bit his lip absent-mindedly. Jyn realised to her annoyance that she found the lip-biting a huge turn-on. Hurriedly she tried to get the conversation back on track. No more IKEA sex in this fic if she could help it.

"Maybe she's up to some other bit of the plot," she offered.

"What, like getting Baze and Chirrut to break in and find the missing X-wing parts?" Cassian asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe she's pursuing her unhealthy interest in Bodhi's sex life. Getting the scientist to smear him with cream cheese and lick strawberry jam from his navel, or something like that..."

"Madre de la fuerza. That's disgusting!"

Jyn found herself quietly amused at Cassian's reaction. She decided to push a bit further.

"This is going up on AO3, remember. She's stress-testing the tagging system to the limit. Cock rings, funny metal balls with an even funnier name you shove up your arse, dildos, rimming, fisting, pegging – you name it, she's got them trying it." Jyn spoke rapidly, watching with a certain glee as Cassian squirmed with distaste. His next words were hesitant.

"Goddess… Do you think she knows about this stuff? Writing from experience?"

"Course not. At least half the stuff on the site is obviously figments of someone's overwrought imagination and sexual frustration at not getting the real deal."

Cassian gave a vague snort of agreement. Then said (possibly in a hopeful tone of voice, at having come up with an alternative explanation to strawberry jam kinkiness), "Or, more boring but equally plausible, perhaps she's simply got writer's block."

"How would we know?" Jyn asked.

"Well, I have a sort of test I've thought up… Jyn..." Suddenly Cassian's brown eyes were serious. "How do you feel about me?"

Jyn gulped. How the kriff did she feel? Her main feeling, right here, right now, was an overwhelming sense of vulnerability at having her emotions probed at all. She hated thinking about that shit. And what the kriff did Cassian mean, even asking about this kind of shit? That was even more unsettling than thinking about her own emotions. No, no, no, NO, NO. She didn't want to go there. She decided honesty was the best policy.

"I don't know. I really don't know. And what the fuck sort of question is that anyway?"

Cassian's shoulders sagged, and his face relaxed a notch, showing that quirk of a half smile he usually got when she was arguing with Kay Tu.

"What?" Jyn demanded.

"It is you. Spiky. Prickly. Don't want to face your emotions."

"Neither do you."

"Hell no!" Cassian breathed an audible sigh of relief. "So whatever's going on – writer's block or smearing poor Bodhi with jam, we can safely say The Writer isn't actually paying attention to us, just right now."

"So..." Jyn said, casting a side-long look at Cassian

"So?" He raised a dark eyebrow questioningly.

"Fancy a quick knee trembler against the wall while she's not looking?"

Jyn watched Cassian's face closely, and was rewarded with another of those half quirk smiles she'd come to know so well.

"I thought you'd never ask."

As first times went (Jyn did not count the all-too-perfect, field-strip-a-blaster experience) it wasn't really anything to comm home about. They did indeed bump noses at the first attempt at a kiss. But once they settled into the task, it turned out Cassian was a pretty good kisser – just the right amount of teasing tongue, but without feeling like someone had put a large and squirming (and very wet) fish in her mouth. And he knew just how to lick and suck at her lower lip.

Neither of them was particularly inclined towards the protracted foreplay The Writer favoured – they just wanted to fuck, and fuck now. Clothes came off in a partial, messy tangle – just enough to allow them to bump uglies (Jyn didn't know why this phrase in particular should suddenly have come to her mind, but it seemed appropriate). He hoisted her onto a narrow shelf, her shoulders pressing against the plasterboard behind, and she wrapped her legs round him, digging his heels into his ass.

It was every bit as nice an ass as she'd always imagined it would be, and even better, his cock more than lived up to the promise of the night in the black-hole bed.

Jyn was just getting into her stride, rocking against Cassian as his thrusts pushed her hard against the wall ( _oh yes, wet cock sliding in and out, filling her completely..._ ), when all of a sudden he came, with a grunt, followed by an anguished "mierda". He was very apologetic – too long since he'd last done it, apparently (it seemed he too didn't count the airbrushed but impersonal perfection of their earlier experience either). But he finished Jyn off with his fingers, and while it wasn't exactly the sort of climax which had her tingling all the way to her toes, it was pleasant enough. (Toes… Now there was another thing. Why did no-one ever mention the erogenous potential of toes in sex scenes?)

And at least (in the absence of The Writer), it felt real. Cassian rested his head on her shoulder and she ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the sheen of sweat sticking their bodies together.

In the heat of the small room, she realised that where her breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples had gone completely flat, the way they did when she was nice and warm. So much for fucking pebbles. _Pebble right off, Writer_. She smiled to herself, feeling Cassian's hair under her lips.

The feeling of triumph was short lived. An entirely different sort of feeling started to replace it, a warm glow of maternal anticipation. Coupled with a needy uncertainty about what Cassian's feelings were.

"Oh fuck," she muttered.

Cassian looked at her anxiously. Frown lines appeared on his forehead. "Kriff, I'm starting to feel all protective and chivalrous towards you..."

"She's back, isn't she? The Writer."


	21. Lie back and think of the rebellion

_Eek! I have not updated this fic since 2017! This is my last chance to post a chapter in 2018. So here it is, my new-year's eve update. I am a bad, bad writer, who may be in need of spanking (but I am also very very vanilla in real life, so maybe not). I am also a writer who has been more blocked than a very blocked drain in need of the urgent attention of Dynorod._

 _So… to recap. Our heroes came to on the beach at Scarif, mysteriously kept alive through the agency of Jyn's Kyber Crystal, in a manner never actually described (cough… plot-hole… cough). Then in the nick of time an Imperial Shuttle showed up and whisked our heroes off planet. They overpowered the pilot (how predictable) and installed K2's operating system in the pilot's droid. The pilot may or may not be a self-insert. Then, via a series of good old tropes (patching up wounds whilst indulging in a bit of hurt-comfort, pretending to be a couple for the sake of the mission while actually wanting to be a couple, Platonic bed-sharing, etc.) our heroes made their way to the Brick mines of Beeloond in the Dahn-eh-marck system where they rescued Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze. In the process they discovered that the plans to the Death Star might well be useless, because both sides could play at industrial sabotage, and the Rebellion's X-Wings were missing a crucial component, the "external thumb" needed to launch the missiles. They also picked up an additional member of their entourage, a scientist. Who may or may not be a self-insert. (Who knows, perhaps The Writer has a split personality and they're both self-inserts.) The scientist took them to the secret lab and revealed one of the Empire's cruellest weapons of psychological warfare, the "AU-Gate". After various AUs too numerous (and factually and historically inaccurate) to list, they have finally found themselves in a campus AU in Bodhi and Jyn's alma-mater and are searching for Dr. Furter to locate the missing external thumb. Oh, and Jyn and Cassian have finally shagged. Twice._

 _And now it's time for that good old R1 trope of "in the past, they fucked to get intel for the rebellion." And The Writer (the real one) makes hay with the minutiae of British scone-eating habits._

 _Confused? You won't be after this_ _week's_ _year's episode of … Blueprint 75159_

They dressed quickly, and Jyn hastily rifled through the med kit for some more mifepristone.

"Next time can we use condoms?"

"Yeah, if nothing else, condoms in a sex scene pretty much guarantees it's us and not The Writer."

When they made it into the dining room, they found Bodhi was back from his own set of nocturnal adventures. He sat next to Chirrut and Baze, rocking slightly. His clothes were slightly rumpled, his shirt was buttoned up wrong, and he had big black rings round his eyes from lack of sleep. And the thousand yard stare was back.

"The cream… She insisted on putting the cream on first." He shuddered uncontrollably.

"Who did?" asked Jyn.

"The scientist," Bodhi gulped.

"Well, I guess that answers the question of which one of them is the self insert," Jyn concluded.

"Not necessarily," said Cassian. "It could be a double bluff. Depends on whether The Writer is from the Kernow system or the Devonia sector."

Jyn raised a puzzled eyebrow. Baze in turn wrinkled a confused forehead.

"Oh for force's sake, eyebrows and foreheads can't have mental states," Chirrut muttered grumpily. As usual, no-one was quite sure how he knew what their eyebrows and foreheads looked like. This led to more puzzlement and confusion among random facial features.

Cassian gave all of them one of his stern intelligence-interrogator looks, then continued with his monologue telling rather than showing where they were with the vexed question of identifying the self-insert. "The Writer. If she herself likes putting the cream on first, she's from Devonia. If she gets off on putting the jam on first, she's from Kernow. Separated only by the narrow spaceway known as the Tamar Bridge, they're right next to each other in hyperspace terms, but in terms of cream usage, they might as well be parsecs apart..."

"I thought parsecs were a measure of time," muttered Jyn, sotto voce in case Cassian got exasperated again. "Y'know, Kessel Run and all that."

"Only if you've got a really shit grasp of astrophysics," Bodhi whispered back. "Trust me on this one, I'm the pilot."

Jyn glanced back up at Cassian. "But how do you know all about their cream, erm, usage?"

Cassian's eyes took on a slightly glazed, lustful look – one she remembered from last night. She swallowed, and felt a sudden pang of jealousy.

"I did quite a lot of, uh, intelligence gathering and, uh, agent recruitment in the Devonia sector. And on Kernow III and IV." Jyn noted his pupils darken, and he absently ran the tip of his tongue along his lower lip. "Kernow IV… all those surfer babes… sun-bleached blonde hair, muscles toned from long days on the board fighting huge waves, some of them as big as 50cm high..." He caught Jyn's expression and hastily tried to dig himself out of the hole (he might as well have been trying to escape the event horizon of a black hole for all the good that did him).

"Dumb blondes, of course. For the rebellion..." Then he gave an embarrassed cough, and settled his features back into their usual bland impassiveness. "Anyway, the point is, the Scientist could be a self-insert because The Writer is from Devonia, but it's still possible the Pilot – the other pilot – is the self insert because she's actually from Kernow and just trying to mess with us."

"Either way," said Bodhi, brightening slightly for just a moment, "At least she realises that adding sultanas into the mix is just perverse and kinky."

Baze shouldered his energy rifle, leaned forwards and rested his hands on the dining table. "Anyway, that's enough about cream and sultanas. It's time we got the plot going again. Remember, we were promised a plot. None of this 'plot, what plot?' nonsense."

Jyn and Cassian shifted awkwardly, looking very embarrassed. Again, uncannily, Chirrut turned his milky eyes in their direction. Baze continued.

"So, Bodhi, Jyn, you're the ones know your way round this campus."

"Town," Bodhi corrected.

"Whatever. Where's our missing mad professor and the key x-wing part likely to be?"

"Hey, I read PPE..."

"PP what?" asked Cassian. "Oh, never mind. Jyn?"

"I read English. I don't know either." Jyn gave a shake of her head. "Could be physics, could be engineering."

Bodhi nodded. "Parks Road, or Banbury Road."

"We could ask the Scientist," said Baze. "In fact," (he gave a bit of a smirk) "We could ask Bodhi to ask the scientist." Bodhi rolled his eyes.

"But what if she's the self-insert?" Jyn enquired.

"Got it!" said Chirrut. "It's the old 'two guardians to the temple' riddle. One always lies, one always tells the truth. Bodhi, go find the scientist and ask her where the pilot would say the x-wing part was being made."

6.626068E-34

 _Really keen eyed readers may spot the fact that the "parsecs" blooper got tidied up in "Solo", in which it transpired that the reference really was to distance, and the danger element lay in the fact that the shorter route was an incredibly dangerous one - all I can say is that this particular chapter has been collecting dust on my hard drive for a very long time..._


	22. Lost in Translation

_Yup, this chapter we're combining those two evergreen fanfic favourites, "Jyn and Cassian have met before, disguised as their various alter egos, but don't remember one another", and "I'm going to appropriate real-world foreign languages for my dialogue, relying entirely on google translate..." As Johnny English would say, "You've met your matchstick."_

 _You may also notice that I've got a bit too lazy to bother consulting my galactic map of the star wars galaxy to come up with planet names._

6.626068E-34

The Rogue One squad hovered under a tree outside a tiny chapel, looking across a busy road. No speeders in this AU, just curiously old fashioned vehicles on wheels (talk about stone age tech), running on (if the acrid fumes didn't deceive them) burning fossil fuel. At the other side of the road stood a building almost ugly enough to be the sort of duracrete monstrosity favoured by the empire. On the edge of the sidewalk ("pavement", Bodhi said, testily) stood a sign saying "Banbury Road", which sounded rather like it might have escaped from the cricketing AU a few chapters earlier, or possibly the rural idyll with tractors AU.

For a moment the group wondered whether they would stand out like sore thumbs, but then they recalled the wide range of weird costumes they'd seen since arriving, and decided that actually this place was already pretty odd. Dodging the stone age wagons-on-wheels, they headed down a side-street, then up a broad flight of stairs to what turned out to be the front entrance of the building. Cassian's heart sank just for a moment (he really ought to find time to see a med-droid about that when he got back to Home One, his thoughts going off at a tangent). There, through the plate glass doors, a reception desk was visible, being-ed by a security guard in a dark uniform. What was the betting the Empire had already infiltrated this AU, and planted their own security guards? (Cassian muttered something to this effect under his breath, and heard K2's answering voice through the comm-link: _Given that the Writer approaches plotting with all the subtlety of a brick, the odds are 1.98736 million to one… ON._ )

"We've got an in," Jyn whispered. "I've just recognised the guard. After I left Saw. When I was getting by slicing and pick-pocketing on Amazonia Prime, he used to work out at the gym I sparred at."

"By the look of him, he's from Randomia Yī-èr-sān," said Baze. "Sure you don't want me or Chirrut to talk to him?"

"No, I got this," said Jyn. She strode up to the security guard.

"Nǐ hǎo, Tarquin," Jyn said breezily. Cassian raised his eyebrows at this. He understood enough to recognise "Hi Tarquin", but the name seemed rather unlikely for a native of Yī-èr-sān. He wondered if The Writer was getting confused again.

"Nǐ hǎo, Lianna," the guard replied. Cassian drew in his breath sharply. So _that's_ why he'd found the scar above her left hip so familiar when they finally got down and dirty last night. He tried to picture her with a sharply cut, silvery blonde bob. Yes, that was it: he'd fucked her before, when she was using one of her many aliases. But another surprise was in store.

"Huòzhě, nǐ hǎo Tanith," the man added.

 _Madre de la fuerza, the mole on her back_. Wild red curls, scarlet lipstick to match. Another alias, another one-night stand.

"Huòzhě wǒ yīnggāi shuō Kestrel ma?"

He hadn't a clue what the Yī-èr-sān-ian meant, but yet again, he recognised the name. Kestrel Dawn. _Kriffin' hells of Hoth, this was getting ridiculous. That night of passion on… Kriff, he couldn't even remember the planet. But the jet black crew cut. He remembered that. The slinky little gold dress. He definitely remembered that. The push-up bra. No man could forget that. And etched in his mind for its sheer eroticism… That wooden leg…_

Dammit! The Writer was just messing with him now.

Jyn held up her hands as if to say "you got me, mate, it's a fair cop." Getting a slight smile out of the guard, she pressed on with an attempt at small-talk.

"Nǐ māmā, nĭ bǎba, tāmen hĕn hǎo ma?"

The man looked startled. Beside Cassian, Chirrut stifled a snort of laughter.

"What did she just say?" Cassian whispered.

Chirrut sounded like he was about to lose it completely. "Are your mum and your poo-poo well?"

Jyn decided she'd had enough of small talk and pulled out one of her night-sticks. A quick flick of the wrist and the man crumpled at her feet. She dragged him into a nearby cupboard, then gestured to the others to follow her down the corridor.

They ran up a flight of stairs, only to have Cassian stop suddenly at the top and gesture for them to head into the shadows. They shrank against the wall of the stairwell. Two guards were the other side of the fire door. Talking… not Festian exactly, but a language that sounded familiar.

"What do we do?" hissed Jyn.

"It's all about sounding confident in your cover story. If I sound convinced that I know them, they'll buy it too." Cassian strutted out through the door.

"Penso che ci siamo già incontrati," Cassian said smoothly.

Jyn's mouth dropped open in astonishment. It seemed the AU-gate had some lasting after-effects. In particular, it seemed that she still remembered Italian from her time as an opera singer. All those classes at the conservatoire in Paris, under the strict but thorough tuition of Signora Neroni. Then perfected the way languages were best perfected – with her thighs wrapped round the hips of a handsome, muscular, dark-haired and remarkably well-hung Italian bass-baritone (he had sung the role of Don Giovanni, she had been his Donna Elvira – abandoned by him on stage, abandoned with him in the dressing room).

Meanwhile, Cassian paused for a moment, then had a rare moment where he faltered. "El año pasado..." Realising his mistake, he attempted to correct it. "L'ano scorso..."

Jyn stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stifle a laugh. It was Chirrut's turn to ask what was so funny.

"What did he say?"

"I think we've met before, last anus," Jyn managed to choke out.

Cassian realised the conversation was going nowhere fast, pulled out his blaster and shot them both.

A few corridors later, they encountered yet another guard. Now it was Bodhi's turn. "I knew him at the imperial academy," he explained. "I'm hoping the word hasn't got out that I've defected."

He sauntered up to the guard, who was eating a lunchtime sandwich.

"Ça va, mon brave. Ça fait longtemps, non?" Bodhi's accent was flawless. To Jyn's ear anyway. Cassian recognised the distinct overtones of Bodhi having learned the language from datapad downloads of "Let's parler Fran-Coruscantais".

"Oui. Comment ça va?" The guard didn't seem startled by the sudden appearance of one of his classmates.

"Même vieux. Et tu?"

"La merde habituelle. Frite?" He held out a bag of crisps.

"Non, merci." Bodhi shook his head, then added by way of explanation, "Je suis plein."

The guard looked even more startled than the one Jyn had talked to. "C'est fou. Zut alors. Une MPreg? Mais non, ce n'est pas possible. Tu n'as pas encore rencontre Skywalker..."

Bodhi looked puzzled, then realization dawned. "Non, non, in cette histoire je n'aime pas les garçons. Seulement la confiture. Et peut etre aussi le crème."

By this point Cassian had begun to get bored, and stepped out of the shadows before sticking a knife between the guard's ribs.

"Hey, that wasn't very nice. He gave me some crisps..." complained Bodhi.

Cassian shrugged. "I'm meant to be a ruthless intelligence agent. And I just spotted a sign on a door further down the corridor saying "X Wing lab."

Breaking into a jog, he headed to the door, pushing it open. Then clattered to a halt in utter shock. Jyn careened into the back of him, with Bodhi joining the pair.

"Oh my kriffin' days..." Bodhi muttered, then fainted.

Reclining on a lab bench, dressed only in a black basque, stockings, gloves and a string of fake pearls, was the scientist. There was a long drawn-out moment of silence before she spoke in a low, sexy drawl.

"Come up to the laaaaab, and see what's on the slaaaab..."

6.626068E-34

 _That last line is for Wheelrider, who quoted the next part of the dialogue in one of her comments!_

 _The dialogue in full:_

 _Chinese_

 _Hi Tarquin_

 _Hi Lianna_

 _Or Hi Tannith_

 _Or should I say Kestrel? [This is the point at which I suspect Google translate could in fact be throwing up absolutely anything!]_

 _Your mama, your poo-poo, are they well?_

 _[Jyn is trying to say bàba, daddy, but instead manages to say bǎba, the child slang word for poo.]_

 _Italian – the translation is in the text, but I've only just realised that due to not lingering long enough over my double consonants, I may well have spent the past three assholes saying "asshole" instead of "year". But at least I know to use the subjunctive after "penso che..."_ _And yes, I do have a particular Italian bass-baritone in mind for my fantasy, and no, I'm not going to tell you who._

 _French_

 _Hi, mate. It's been a long time, no?_

 _Yeah. How's things?_

 _Same old, same old. And you?_

 _The usual shit. Crisp?_

 _No thanks, I'm pregnant._

 _That's mad. Zut alors. An MPreg? But no, that's not possible. You haven't even met Skywalker yet._

 _No, no, in this story I don't like boys. Only jam. And perhaps also cream._

 _[I went to an all girls' school. Our French teacher was very insistent we learn the difference between "j'ai plein" and "je suis plein." I believe a similar mistake lurks in waiting for unwary English speakers of German.]_


End file.
